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THE SPELL or SCOTLAND 



THE SPELL SERIES 

Each volume with one or more colored plates 
and many illustrations from original drawings 
or special photographs. Octavo, decorative 
cover, gilt top, boxed. 

Per volume, net $2.50; carriage paid $2.70 

By Isabel Ajstdersok 

THE SPELL OF BELGIUM 
THE SPELL OF JAPAN 
THE SPELL OF THE HAWAIIAN 
ISLANDS AND THE PHILIPPINES 

By Caroline Atwatek Masok 
THE SPELL OF ITALY 
THE SPELL OF SOUTHERN SHORES 
THE SPELL OF FRANCE 

By Archie Bell 

THE SPELL OF EGYPT 

THE SPELL OF THE HOLY LAND 

By Keith Clark 

THE SPELL OF SPAIN 
THE SPELL OF SCOTLAND 

By W. D. McCrackan 

THE SPELL OF TYROL 

THE SPELL OF THE ITALIAN LAKES 

By Edward Neville Vose 

THE SPELL OF FLANDERS 

By Burton E. Stevenson 

THE SPELL OF HOLLAND 

By Julia DeW. Addison 
THE SPELL OF ENGLAND 

By Nathan Haskell Dole 

THE SPELIT OF SWITZERLAND 

THE PAGE COMPANY 

53 Beacon Street Boston, Mass. 




Spell ^ Scotland 



Kdih Clark 

Author of " The Spell of Spain, " etc. 

' Ji TravetteT tnas lee wi aulhotily. " {Scotch Prooerb) 







Copyright, 1916, by 
The Page Company 

All rights reserved 



First Impression, November, 1916 




THE COLONIAL PRESS 
C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY, BOSTON, U. S. A. 



'CI,A445860 



TO 
THE LORD MARISCHAL 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER • PAGE 

I. Hame, Hame, Hame! 1 

II. Scotts-Land 24 

III. Border Towns 53 

IV. The Empress of the North 82 

V. The Kingdom of Fife 149 

VI. To THE North 171 

VII. Highland and Lowland 194 

VIII. The Circle Round 220 

IX. The Western Isles 252 

X. The Lakes 277 

XI. The West Country 314 

Bibliography 335 

Index 339 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

The Pass of Killiecrankie {in full colour) {See page 
195) Frontispiece 

MAP OF SCOTLAND 1^ 

James VI 6 "^ 

Queen Mary 15 ^' 

James II 25 '^ 

Melrose Abbey . . . 34 ^ 

Abbotsford {in full colour) ^^ / 

The Study, Abbotsford 45'' 

St. Mary's Aisle and Tomb of Sir Walter Scott, 

Dryburgh Abbey 51 

Jedburgh Abbey 63 

Hermitage Castle 66 

Newark Castle 74 

Interior View, Tibbie Shiel's Inn . . . . 77 ' 

St. Mary's Lake . 80 ' . 

Edinburgh Castle {in full colour) 86 

MoNS Meg 90 

Greyfriars' Churchyard 96 

Moray House 102 ' 

Interior op St. Giles 104 - 

John Knox's House 106 

James Graham, Marquis of Montrose ' . . . 108 

Holyrood Palace Ill 

James IV 115 ^-^ 

Margaret Tudor, Queen of James IV . . . 124 ' ^ 

Bothwell Castle {in full colour) 131 ' 

Princes Street 134 ^ 

John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee . 142 ^ 



List of Illustrations 



Tantallon Castle 157"^ 

St. Andrews Castle 165 .' 

Drawing-room, Linlithgow Palace, where Queen 

Mary was Born . . . , . . . 184 -/ 

Huntington Tower 190 'Z 

Glamis Castle 194^' 

Glen Tilt 197 7 

Invercauld House . . 200 v 

Balmoral Castle 205 / 

Marischal College 207 ^ 

Dunnottar Castle 212 / 

Spynie Castle 224 J 

Cawdor Castle {in full colour) . . . '. . 227 / 

Battlefield of Culloden 232 / 

The Old Man of Hoy 237 / 

Earl's Palace, Kirkwall 240 > 

Invergarry Castle 248 

Kilchurn Castle 258 

Aros Castle 265 ' 

Entrance to Fingal's Cave 267 ' 

Cathedral op Iona AND St. Martin's Cross . . . 273 

Dumbarton Castle 282 

Loch Katrine 289 , 

The Brig o' Turk 294 v 

The Trossachs {in full colour) 296 \ 

Stirling Castle {in full colour) 304 

Doune Castle 310 

Portrait op ThOmas Carlyle, by Whistler . . 317 

Ayr River {in full colour) 322 

Burns' Cottage, Birth-place of Robert Burns, Ayr 328 
Caerlaverock Castle . 333 



SHETLAND ISLANDS." 



€fr," ^Jx,yr-" " 




THE 

SPELL OF SCOTLAND 




CHAPTER I 

HAME, HAME, HAME ! 

"It's hame, and it's hame, hame fain wad I be, 
And it's hame, hame, hame, to my ain eountree !" 

'IME was when half a hundred ports ring- 
ing round the semi-island of Scotland in- 
vited your boat to make harbour; you 
could ''return" at almost any point of entry 
you chose, or chance chose for you. 

To-day, if you have been gone for two hundred 
and fifty years, or if you never were ' * of Scotia 
dear," except as a mere reading person with an 
inclination toward romance, you can make har- 
bour after a transatlantic voyage at but one sea- 
city, and that many miles up a broad in-reach- 

X 



The Spell of Scotland 



ing river. Or, you can come up the English 
roads by Carlisle or by Newcastle, and cross 
the Border in the conquering way, which never 
yet was all-conquering. There is shipping, of 
course, out of the half hundred old harbours. 
But it is largely the shipping that goes and 
comes, fishing boats and coast pliers and the 
pleasure boats of the western isles. 

You cannot come back from the far corners 
of the earth — to which Scotland has sent such 
majorities of her sons, since the old days when 
she squandered them in battle on the Border or 
on the Continent, to the new days when she 
squanders them in colonization so that half a 
dozen of her counties show decline in popula- 
tion — but you must come to Glasgow. The 
steamers are second-class compared with those 
which make port farther south. They are 
slower. But their very lack of modern splen- 
dour and their slow speed give time in which to 
reconstruct your Scotland, out of which perhaps 
you have been banished since the Covenant, or 
the Fifteen, or the Forty Five; or perhaps out 
of which you have never taken the strain which 
makes you romantic and Cavalier, or Presby- 
terian and canny. We who have it think that 
you who have it not lose something very precious 
for which there is no substitute. We pity you. 



Hame, Hame, Hame! 



More clannish than most national tribesmen, we 
cannot understand how you can endure exist- 
ence without a drop of Scotch. 

Always when I go to Scotland I feel myself 
returning ''home." Notwithstanding that it is 
two centuries and a bittock since my clerical an- 
cestor left his home, driven out no doubt by 
the fluctuant fortunes of Covenanter and Cav- 
alier, or, it may be, because he believed he car- 
ried the only true faith in his chalice — only he 
did not carry a chalice — and, either he would 
keep it undefiled in the New World, or he would 
share it with the benighted in the New World; 
I know not. 

All that I know is that in spite of the fact that 
the Scotch in me has not been replenished since 
those two centuries and odd, I still feel that it 
is a search after ancestors when I go back to 
Scotland. And, if a decree of banislmaent was 
passed by the unspeakable Hanoverians after 
the first Eising, and lands and treasure were for- 
feited, still I look on entire Scotland as my 
demesne. I surrender not one least portion of 
it. Not any castle, ruined or restored, is alien 
to me. Highlander and Lowlander are my un- 
divisive kin. However empty may seem the 
moorlands and the woodlands except of grouse 
and deer, there is not a square foot of the 



The Spell of Scotland 



twenty-nine thousand seven hundred eighty- 
five square miles but is filled for me with a 
longer procession, if not all of them royal, than 
moved ghostly across the vision of Macbeth. 

Nothing happens any longer in Scotland. 
Everything has happened. Quite true, Scot- 
land may some time reassert itself, demand its 
independence, cease from its romantic reliance 
on the fact that it did furnish to England, to the 
British Empire, the royal line, the Stewarts. 
Even Queen Victoria, who was so little a Stew- 
art, much more a Hanoverian and a Puritan, 
was most proud of her Stewart blood, and re- 
garded her summers in the Highlands as the 
most ancestral thing in her experience. 

Scotland may at sometime dissolve the Union, 
which has been a union of equality, accept the 
lower estate of a province, an American 
*' state," among the possible four of '^ Great 
Britain and Ireland," and enter on a more vig- 
orous provincial life, live her own life, instead 
of exporting vigour to the colonies — and her ex- 
portation is almost done. She may fill this 
great silence which lies over the land, and is 
fairly audible in the deserted Highlands, with 
something of the human note instead of the call 
of the plover. 

But, for us, for the traveler of to-day, and 



Hame, Hamej Hame! 



at least for another generation, Scotland is a 
land where nothing happens, where everything 
has happened. It has happened abundantly, 
multitudinously, splendidly. No one can re- 
gret — except he is a reformer and a socialist — 
the absence of the doings of to-day ; they would 
be so realistic, so actual, so small, so of the 
province and the parish. Whereas in the 
Golden Age, which is the true age of Scotland, 
men did everything — loving and fighting, mur- 
dering and marauding, with a splendour which 
makes it seem fairly not of our kind, of another 
time and of another world. 

You must know your Scottish history, you 
must be filled with Scottish romance, above all, 
you must know your poetry and ballads, if you 
would rebuild and refill the country as you go. 
Not only over fair Melrose lies the moonlight 
of romance, making the ruin more lovely and 
more complete than the abbey could ever have 
been in its most established days, but over the 
entire land there lies the silver pall of moon- 
light, making, I doubt not, all things lovelier 
than in reality. 

We truly felt that we should have arranged 
for "a hundred pipers an' a' an' a'." But we 
left King's Cross station in something of dis- 
guise. The cockneys did not know that we were 



The Spell of Scotland 



returning to Scotland. Our landing was to be 
made as quietly, without pibroch, as when the 
Old Pretender landed at Peterhead on the far 
northeastern corner, or when the Young Pre- 
tender landed at Moidart on the far western 
rim of the islands. And neither they nor we 
pretenders. 

The East Coast route is a pleasant way, and 
I am certain the hundred pipers, or whoever 
were the merry musicmakers who led the Eng- 
lish troops up that way when Edward First was 
king, and all the Edwards who followed him, 
and the Richards and the Henrys — they all 
measured ambition with Scotland and failed — 
I am certain they made vastly more noise than 
this excellently managed railway which moves 
across the English landscape with due English 
decorum. 

We were to stop at Peterborough, and walk 
out to where, ''on that ensanguined block at 
Fotheringay, " the queenliest queen of them all 
laid her head and died that her son, James 
Sixth of Scotland, might become First of Eng- 
land. We stopped at York for the minster, 
and because Alexander III was here married to 
Margaret, daughter of Henry HI; and their 
daughter being married to Eric of Norway in 
those old days when Scotland and Norway were 




JAMES VT. 



Hame, Hame, Hame! 



kin, became mother to the Maid of Norway, one 
of the most pathetic and outstanding figures in 
Scottish history, simply because she died — and 
from her death came divisions to the kingdom. 

We paused at Durham, where in that gorgeous 
tomb St. Cuthbert hes buried after a brave and 
Scottish life. We only looked across the pur- 
pling sea where already the day was fading, 
where the slant rays of the sun shone on Lin- 
disfarne, which the spirit of St. Cuthbert must 
prefer to Durham. 

All unconsciously an old song came to sing 
itself as I looked across that wide water — 

''My love's in Germanie, 
Send Mm hame, send him hame, 
My love's in Germanie, 
Fighting for royalty, 
He's as brave as brave can be, 
Send him hame, send him hame !" 

Full many a lass has looked across this sea 
and sung this lay — and shall again. 

The way is filled with ghosts, long, long pro- 
cessions, moving up and down the land. A 
boundary is always a lodestone, a lodeline. 
Why do men establish it except that other men 
dispute it? In the old days England called it 
treason for a Borderer, man or woman, to in- 
termarry with Scotch Borderer, The lure, you 



8 The Spell of Scotland 

see, went far. Even so that kings and ladies, 
David and Matilda, in the opposing edges of the 
Border, married each other. And always there 
was Gretna Green. 

Agricola came this way, and the Emperor 
Severus. There is that interesting, far- jour- 
neying ^neas Sylvius Piccolomini, the "Gil 
Bias of the Middle Ages," who later became 
Pius II. He came to this country by boat, but 
becoming afraid of the sea, returned by land, 
even opposite to the way we are going. Frois- 
sart came, but reports little. Perhaps Chaucer, 
but not certainly. George Fox came and called 
the Scots ''a dark carnal people." 

With the Act of Union the stream grows 
steady and full. There is Ben Jonson, trudg- 
ing along the green roadway out yonder; for 
on foot, and all the way from London, he came 
northward to visit William Drummond of Haw- 
thornden. Who would not journey to such a 
name? But, alas, a fire destroyed ''my journey 
into Scotland sung with all the adventures." 
All that I know of Ben is that he was impressed 
with Lomond — two hundred years before Scott. 

And there trails Taylor, "water poet," hop- 
ing to rival Bare Ben, on his "Pennyless Pil- 
grimage," when he actually went into Scotland 
without a penny, and succeeded in getting gold 



Hame, Hame, Hame! 



to further him on his way — ''Marr, Murraye, 
Elgin, Bughan, and the Lord of Erskine, all of 
these I thank them, gave me gold to defray my 
charges in my journey. ' ' 

James Howell, carries a thin portfolio as he 
travels the highway. But we must remember 
that he wrote his "Perfect Description of the 
People and Country of Scotland" in the Fleet. 

Here is Doctor Johnson, in a post chaise. 
Of course, Sir! '^Mr. Boswell, an active lively 
fellow is to conduct me round the country." 
And he's still a lively conductor. Surely you 
can see the Doctor, in his high boots, and his 
very wide brown cloth great coat with pockets 
which might be carrying two volumes of his 
folio dictionary, and in his hand a large oak 
staff. One tries to forget that years before 
this journey he had said to Boswell, '^Sir, the 
noblest prospect that a Scotchman ever sees 
is the highroad that leads him to London." 
And, was there any malice in Boswell's final 
record — ''My illustrious friend, being now de- 
sirous to be again in the great theater of life 
and animated existence"? 

The poet Gray preceded him a little, and even 
John Wesley moves along the highroad seeking 
to save Scottish souls as well as English. A 
few years afterward James Hogg comes down 



10 The Spell of Scotland 

tMs way to visit his countryman, Tammas Car- 
lyle in London ; who saw Hogg as ' ' a little red- 
skinned stiff rock of a body with quite the com- 
mon air of an Ettrick shepherd." 

There is Scott, many times, from the age of 
five when he went to Bath, till that last journey 
back from Italy — to Dryburgh ! And Shadowy 
Jeanie Deans comes downward, walking her 
** twenty-five miles and a bittock a day," to save 
her sister from death. 

Disraeli comes up this way when he was 
young and the world was his oyster. Steven- 
son passes up and down, sending his merry men 
up and down. And one of the most native is 
William Winter — "With a quick sense of free- 
dom and of home, I dashed across the Border 
and was in Scotland." 

There is a barricade of the Cheviots stretch- 
ing across between the two countries, but the 
Eomans built a Wall to make the division more 
apparent. In the dawn of the centuries the 
Romans came hither, and attempting to come 
to Ultima Thule, Picts and Scots — ^whatever 
they were, at least they were brave — met the 
Romans on the Border, as yet unreported in the 
world's history and undefined in the world's 
geography, and sent them back into what is 
England. The Romans in single journeys, and 



Hame, Hame, Hame! 11 

in certain imperial attempts, did penetrate as 
far as Inverness. But they never conquered 
Scotland. Only Scotland of all the world held 
them back. And in order to define their defeat 
and to place limits to the unlimited Eoman Em- 
pire, the Great Wall was built, built by Hadrian, 
that men might know where civilization, that 
splendid thing called Eoman civilization, and 
barbarism did meet. Scotland was barbarism. 
And I think, not in apology but in all pride, she 
has remained something of this ever since. 
Never conquered, never subdued. 

The Wall was, in truth, a very palpable thing, 
stretching from the Solway to the North Sea 
at the Tyne, with ample width for the constant 
patrol, with lookout towers at regular and fre- 
quent intervals, with soldiers gathered from 
every corner of the Empire, often the spawn 
of it, and with much traffic and with even perma- 
nent villas built the secure side of the barrier. 
If you meet Puck on Pook's hill, he will tell you 
all about it. 

Our fast express moves swiftly northward, 
through the littoral of Northumberland, as the 
ship bearing Sister Clare moved through the 
sea — 

"And now the vessel skirts the strand 
Of mountainous Northumberland j 



12 The Spell of Scotland 

Towns, towers, and hills successive rise, 
And catch the nun's delighted eyes." 



Berwick 

The voyager enters Berwick with a curious 
feeling. It is because of the voyagers who have 
preceded him that this town is singular among 
all the towns of the Empire. It is of the Em- 
pire, it is of Britain; but battled round about, 
and battled for as it has been since ambitious 
time began, it is of neither England nor Scot- 
land. ''Our town of Berwick-upon-Tweed," as 
the phrase still runs in the acts of Parlia- 
ment, and in the royal proclamations ; not Eng- 
land 's, not Scotland's. Our town, the King's 
town. 

For it is an independent borough (1551) since 
the men who fared before us could not determine 
which should possess it, and so our very own 
time records that history in an actual fact. I 
do not suppose the present serious-looking, 
trades-minded people of the city, with their dash 
of fair Danish, remember their singular situa- 
tion day by day. The tumult and the shouting 
have died which made ''the Border" the most 
embattled place in the empire, and Berwick- 



Hame, Hame, Hame! 13 

upon-Tweed the shuttlecock in this international 
game of badminton. 

It is a dual town at the best. But what has it 
not witnessed, what refuge, what pawn, has it 
not been, this capital of the Debatable Land, 
this Key of the Border. 

The Tweed is here spanned by the Eoyal 
Border Bridge, opened in 1850, and called ' ' the 
last Act of Union." But there is another 
bridge, a Eoman bridge of many spans, antique 
looking as the Eoman-Moorish-Spanish bridge 
at Cordova, and as antique as 1609, an Act of 
Union following swiftly on the footsteps of 
King James VI — who joyously paused here to 
fire a salute to himself, on his way to the im- 
perial throne. 

The walls of Berwick, dismantled in 1820 and 
become a promenade for peaceful townsfolk and 
curious sightseers, date no farther back than 
Elizabeth's time. But she had sore need of 
them; for this "our town," was the refuge for 
her harriers on retaliatory Border raids, par- 
ticularly that most terrible Monday-to-Satur- 
day foray of 1570, that answer to an attempt to 
reassert the rights of Mary, when fifty castles 
and peels and three hundred villages were laid 
waste in order that Scotland might know that 
Elizabeth was king. 



14 The Spell of Scotland 

It was her kingly father, the Eighth Henry, 
who ordered Hertford into Scotland — ''There 
to put all to fire and sword, to burn Edinburgh 
town, and to raze and deface it, when you have 
sacked it and gotten what you can of it, as there 
may remain forever a perpetual memory of the 
vengeance of God lighted upon it for their false- 
hood and disloyalty. Sack Holyrood House and 
as many towns and villages about Edinburgh 
as ye conveniently can. Sack Leith and burn 
it and subvert it, and all the rest, putting man, 
woman and child to fire and sword without ex- 
ception, when any resistance is made against 
you. And this done, pass over to the Fife land, 
and extend like extremities and destructions in 
all towns and villages whereunto ye may reach 
conveniently, not forgetting among the rest, so 
to spoil and turn upside down the Cardinal's 
town of St. Andrews, as the upper stone may be 
the nether, and not one stick stand by another, 
sparing no creature alive within the same, es- 
pecially such as either in friendship or blood be 
allied to the Cardinal. The accomplishment of 
all this shall be most acceptable to the Majesty 
and Honour of the King." 

Berwick has known gentler moments, even 
marrying and giving in marriage. It was at 
this Border town that David, son of the Bruce, 




QUEEN MARY. 



Hame, Hame, Hamel 15 

and Joanna, sister of Edward III, were united 
in marriage. Even then did the kingdoms seek 
an Act of Union. And Prince David was four, 
and Princess Joanna was six. There was much 
feasting by day and much revelry by night, 
among the nobles of the two realms, while, no 
doubt, the babies nodded drowsily. 

At Berwick John Knox united himself in mar- 
riage with Margaret Stewart, member of the 
royal house of Stewart, cousin, if at some re- 
move, from that Stewart queen who belonged 
to ''the monstrous regiment of women," and to 
whose charms even the Calvinist John was sen- 
sitive. One remembers that at Berwick John 
was fifty, and Margaret was sixteen. 

There is not much in Berwick to hold the at- 
tention, unless one would dine direct on salmon 
trout just drawn frae the Tweed. There are 
memories, and modern content with what is 
modern. 

Perhaps the saddest eyes that ever looked 
on the old town were those of Queen Mary, as 
she left Jedburgh, after her almost fatal illness, 
and after her hurried ride to the Hermitage to 
see Bothwell, and just before the fatal affair in 
Kirk o' Field. Even then, and even with her 
spirit still unbroken, she felt the coming of the 
end. *'I am tired of my life," she said more 



16 The Spell of Scotland 

than once to Le Croc, French ambassador, on 
this journey as she circled about the coast and 
back to Edinburgh. 

She rode toward Berwick with an escort of 
a thousand men, and looked down on the town 
from Halidon Hill, on the west, where two hun- 
dred years before (1333) the Scots under the 
regent Douglass had suffered defeat by the Eng- 
lish. 

It was an old town then, and belonged to 
Elizabeth. But it looked much as it does to- 
day; the gray walls, so recently built; the red 
roofs, many of them sheltering Berwickians to- 
day ; the church spires, for men worshiped God 
in those days in churches, and according to the 
creeds that warred as bitterly as crowns ; masts 
in the offing, whence this last time one might 
take ship to France, that pleasant smiling land 
so different from this dour realm. At all these 
Mary must have looked wistfully and weariedly, 
as the royal salute was fired for this errant 
queen. She looked also, over the Border, then 
becoming a hard-and-fast boundary, and down 
the long, long road to Fotheringay, and to peace 
at last and honour, in the Abbey. 

It is well to stand upon this hill, before you 
go on to the West and the Border, or on to the 
North and the gray metropolis, that you may 



Hame, Hame, Hame! 17 

appreciate both the tragedy and the triuniph 
that is Scotland's and was Mary's. The North 
Sea is turning purple far out on the horizon, 
and white sea birds are flying across beyond 
sound. The long level light of the late after- 
noon is coming up over England. In the back- 
ward of the Border a plaintive curlew is crying 
in the West, as he has cried since the days of 
Mary, and aeons before. 



Flodden 

You may go westward from here, by train 
and coach, and carriage and on foot, to visit this 
country where every field has been a battlefield, 
where ruined peel towers finally keep the peace, 
where castles are in ruins, and a few stately 
modern homes proclaim the permanence of Scot- 
tish nobility; and where there is no bird and 
no flower unsung by Scottish minstrelsy, or 
by Scott. Scott is, of course, the poet and 
prose laureate of the Border. ''Marmion" is 
the lay, almost the guide-book. It should 
be carried with you, either in memory or in 
pocket. 

If the day is not too far spent, the afternoon 
sun too low, you can make Norham Castle before 



18 The Spell of Scotland 

twilight, even as Marmion made it when he 
opened the first canon of Scott's poem — 

"Day set on Norham's castle steep 
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep, 

And Cheviot's mountains lone; 
The battled towers, the donjon keep. 
The loophole grates, where captives weep, 
The flanking walls that round it sweep. 

In yellow luster shone." 

There is but a fragment of that castle remain- 
ing, and this, familiar to those who study 
Turner in the National Gallery. A little village 
with one broad street and curiously receding 
houses attempts to live in the shadow of this 
memory. The very red-stone tower has stood 
there at the top of the steep bank since the mid- 
dle Eleven Hundreds. Henry 11 held it as a 
royal castle, while his craven son John — not so 
craven in battle — regarded it as the first of his 
fortresses. Edward I made it his headquar- 
ters while he pretended to arbitrate the rival 
claims of the Scottish succession, and to es- 
tablish himself as the Lord Superior. On the 
green hill of Holywell nearby he received the 
submission of Scotland in 1291 — the submis- 
sion of Scotland ! 

Ford castle is a little higher up the river, 
where lodged the dubious lady with whom the 



Hame, Hame, Hame! 19 

king liad dalliance in tliose slack days preceding 
Flodden — the lady who had sung to him in 
Holyrood the challenging ballad of ''Young 
Lochinvar!" James was ever a Stewart, and 
regardful of the ladies. 

"What cheeks the fiery soul of James, 
Why sits the champion of dames 
Inactive on his steed*?" 

The Norman tower of Ford (the castle has 
been restored), called the King's tower, looks 
down on the battlefield, and in the upper room, 
called the King's room, there is a carved fire- 
place carrying the historic footnote — 

"King James ye 4th of Scotland did lye 
here at Ford castle, A. D. 1513." 

Somehow one hopes that the lady was not 
sparring for time and Surrey, and sending mes- 
sages to the advancing Earl, but truly loved 
this Fourth of the Jameses, grandfather to his 
inheriting granddaughter. 

Coldstream is the station for Flodden. But 
the village, lying a mile away on the Scotch side 
of the Tweed, has memories of its own. It was 
here that the most famous ford was found be- 
tween the two countries, witness and way to so 
many acts of disunion; from the time when 
Edward I, in 1296, led his forces through it into 



20 The Spell of Scotland 

Scotland, to the time when Montrose, in 1640, 
led his forces through it into England. 

"There on this dangerous ford and deep 
Where to the Tweed Leet's eddies creep 
He ventured desperately." 

The river was spanned by a five-arch bridge 
in 1763, and it was over this bridge that Eobert 
Burns crossed into England. He entered the 
day in his diary, May 7, 1787. "Coldstream — 
went over to England — Cornhill — glorious river 
Tweed — clear and majestic — fine bridge." 

It was the only time Burns ever left Scotland, 
ever came into England. And here he knelt 
down, on the green lawn, and prayed the prayer 
that closes "The Cotter's Saturday Night" — 

"0 Thou who pour'd the patriot tide 
That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart, 
Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride 
Or nobly die, the second glorious part, 
(The patriot's God, peculiarly Thou art, 
His friend, inspirer, guardian and reward!) 
never, never, Scotia's realm desert; 
But still the patriot and the patriot bard, 
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!" 

Surely a consecration of this crossing after 
its centuries of unrest. 

General Monk spent the winter of 1659 in 
Coldstream, lodging in a house east of the mar- 



Hame, Hame, Hame! 21 

ket-place, marked with its tablet. And here he 
raised the first of the still famous Coldstream 
Guards, to bring King Charles ''o'er the water" 
back to the throne. Coldstream is the Gretna 
Green of this end of the Border, and many a 
runaway couple, noble and simple, has been 
married in the inn. 

Four miles south of Coldstream in a lonely 
part of this lonely Border — almost the echoes 
are stilled, and you hear nothing but remem- 
bered bits of Marmion as you walk the high- 
way — lies Flodden Field. It was the greatest 
of Scotch battles, not even excepting Bannock- 
burn; greatest because the Scotch are greatest 
in defeat. 

It was, or so it seemed to James, because his 
royal brother-in-law Henry VIII was fighting 
in France, an admirable time wherein to ad- 
vance into England. James had received a ring 
and a glove and a message, from Anne of Brit- 
tany, bidding him 

"Strike three strokes with Scottish brand 
And march three miles on Scottish land 
And bid the banners of his band 
In English breezes dance." 

James was not the one to win at Flodden, 
notwithstanding that he had brought a hundred 



22 The Spell of Scotland 

thousand men to his standard. They were con- 
tent to raid the Border, and he to dally at Ford. 

"0 for one hour of Wallace wight, 
Or well skill'd Bruce to rule the fight, 
And cry — 'Saint Andrew and our right!' 
Another sight had seen that mom 
From Fate's dark book a leaf been torn, 
And Flodden had been Bannoekbum!" 

The very thud of the lines carries you along, 
if you have elected to walk through the country- 
side, green now and smiling faintly if deserted, 
where it was brown and sere in September, 
1513. One should be repeating his ' ' Marmion, ' ' 
as Scott thought out so many of its lines riding 
over this same countryside. It is a splendid, 
a lingering battle picture — 

"And first the ridge of mingled spears 
Above the brightening cloud appears; 
And in the smoke the pennon flew. 
As in the storm the white sea mew. 
Then mark'd they, dashing broad and far, 
The broken billows of the war; 
And plumed crests of chieftains brave, 
Floating like foam upon the wave, 
But nought distinct they see. 
Wide ranged the battle on the plain; 
Spears shook, and falchions flash'd amain, 
Fell England's arrow flight like rain, 
Crests rose and stooped and rose again 
Wild and disorderly." 



Hame, Hame, HameS 23 

Thousands were lost on both sides. But the 
flower of England was in France, while the 
flower of Scotland was here; and slain — the 
king, twelve earls, fifteen lords and chiefs, an 
archbishop, the French ambassador, and many 
French captains. 

You walk back from the Field, and all the 
world is changed. The green haughs, the green 
woodlands, seem even in the summer sun to be 
dun and sere, and those burns which made merry 
on the outward way — can it be that there are 
red shadows in their waters? It is not ^'Mar- 
mion" but Jean Elliott's "Flower of the For- 
est" that lilts through the memory — 

"Dule and wae was the order sent our lads to the Border, 
The English for once by guile won the day ; 
The Flowers of the Forest that foueht aye the foremost, 
The pride of our land are cauld in the clay. 

"We'll hear nae mair liltin' at the eve milkin', 
Women and bairns are heartless and wae; 
Sighin' and moanin' on ilka green loanin' — 
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away." 

I know not by what alchemy the Scots are 
always able to win our sympathy to their his- 
toric tragedies, or why upon such a field as 
Flodden, and many another, the tragedy seems 
but to have just happened, the loss is as though 
of yesterday. 



CHAPTER II 

SOOTTS-LAND 

*T is possible to enter the Middle Marches 
from Berwick ; in truth, Kelso lies scarcely 
farther from Flodden than does Berwick. 
But Flodden is on English soil to-day, and 
memory is content to let it lie there. These 
Middle Marches however are so essentially 
Scottish, the splendour and the romance, the 
history and the tragedy, that one would fain 
keep them so, and come upon them as did the 
kings from David I, or even the Celtic kings 
before him, who sought refuge from the bleak 
Scottish north in this smiling land of dales and 
haughs, of burns and lochs. Not at any mo- 
ment could life become monotonous even in this 
realm of romance, since the Border was near, 
and danger and dispute so imminent, so inces- 
sant. 

Preferably then one goes from Edinburgh 
(even though never does one go from that city, 
"mine own romantic town," but with regret; 
not even finally when one leaves it and knows 

24 




JAMES II. 



Scotts-Land 25 



one will not return till next time) to Melrose; 
as Scottish kings of history and story have 
passed before. There was James II going to 
the siege of Roxburgh, and not returning ; there 
was James IV going to the field of Flodden and 
not returning ; there was James V going to hunt 
the deer ; there was James VI going up to Lon- 
don to be king ; Mary Queen on that last jour- 
ney to the South Countrie; Charles I and 
Charles II losing and getting a crown ; Charles 
III — ^let us defy history and call the Bonnie 
Prince by his title — ^when he went so splendidly 
after Prestonpans. 

It is a royal progress, out of Edinburgh into 
the Middle Marches; past Dalkeith where 
James IV rode to meet and marry Margaret of 
England; past Borthwick, where Queen Mary 
spent that strange hot-trod honeymoon with 
Bothwell — of all place of emotion this is the 
most difficult to realize, and I can but think 
Mary's heart was broken here, and the heart- 
break at Carberry Hill was but an echo of this ; 
past Lauder, where the nobles of ignoble James 
III hung his un-noble favourite from the stone 
arch of the bridge ; into the level rays of a set- 
ting sun — always the setting sun throws a more 
revealing light than that of noonday over this 
Scotland. 



26 The Spell of Scotland 



Melrose 

I remember on my first visit to Melrose, of 
course during my first visit to Scotland, I sched- 
uled my going so as to arrive there in the eve- 
ning of a night when the moon would be at the 
full. I had seen it shine gloriously on the front 
of York, splendidly on the towers of Durham. 
What would it not be on fair Melrose, viewed 
aright ? 

I hurried northward, entered Edinburgh only 
to convey my baggage, and then closing my eyes 
resolutely to all the glory and the memory that 
lay about, I went southward through the early 
twilight. I could see, would see, nothing before 
Melrose. 

The gates of the Abbey were, of course, 
closed. But I did not wish to enter there until 
the magic hour should strike. The country 
round about was ineffably lovely in the rose 
light of the vanishing day. 

"Where fair Tweed flows round holy Melrose 
And Eildon slopes to the plain." 

The Abbey was, of course, the center of 
thought continually, and its red-gray walls 



Scotts-Land 27 



caught the light of day and the coming shadows 
of night in a curious effect which no picture can 
report; time has dealt wondrously with this 
stone, leaving the rose for the day, the gray for 
the night. 

I wandered about, stopping in the empty slop- 
ing market-place to look at the Cross, which is 
as old as the Abbey; looking at the graveyard 
which surrounds the Abbey, where men lie, com- 
mon men unsung in Scottish minstrelsy, except 
as part of the great hosts, men who heard the 
news when it was swift and fresh from Ban- 
nockburn, and Flodden, and Culloden; and 
where men and women still insert their mortal- 
ity into this immortality — Elizabeth Clephane 
who wrote the ''Ninety and Nine" lies there; 
and out into the country and down by the Tweed 
toward the Holy Pool, the Haly Wheel, to won- 
der if when I came again in the middle night, I, 
too, should see the white lady rise in mist from 
the waters, this lady of Bemersyde who had 
loved a monk of Melrose not wisely but very 
well, and who drowned herself in this water 
where the monk in penance took daily plunges, 
come summer, come winter. How often this is 
the Middle- Age penalty! 

Far across the shimmering green meadows 
and through the fragrant orchards came the 



28 The Spell of Scotland 

sound of bagpipes — on this my first evening in 
Scotland ! And whether or not you care for the 
pipes, there is nothing like them in a Scottish 
twilight, a first Scottish twilight, to reconstruct 
all the Scotland that has been. 

The multitudes and the individuals came 
trooping back. At a time of famine these very 
fields were filled with huts, four thousand of 
them, for always the monks had food, and al- 
ways they could perform miracles and obtain 
food ; which they did. That for the early time. 
And for the late, the encampment of Leslie's 
men in these fields before the day when they 
slaughtered Montrose's scant band of royalists 
at Philipshaugh, and sent that most splendid 
figure in late Scottish history as a fugitive to 
the north, and to the scaffold. 

I knew that in the Abbey before the high altar 
lay the high heart of The Bruce, which had 
been carried to Spain and to the Holy Land, 
by order of Bruce, since death overtook him be- 
fore he could make the pilgrimage. Lord 
James Douglass did battle on the way against 
the Moslems in southern Spain, where "a Doug- 
lass! a Douglass!" rang in battle clash against 
*' Allah, illah, allah," and the Douglass himself 
was slain. The heart of The Bruce flung 
against the infidel, was recovered and sent on 



Scotts-Land 29 



to Jerusalem, and then back to Melrose. The 
body of Douglass was brought back to Scotland, 
to St. Bride 's church in Douglass, and his heart 
also lies before the high altar of Melrose. ''In 
their death they were not divided." 
There lies also buried Michael Scot 

"Buried on St. Michael's night, 
When the bell toll'd one and the moon was bright." 

On such a night as this, I hoped. And Scot 
is fit companion for the twilight. This strange 
wizard of a strange time was born in Upper 
Tweedale, which is the district of Merlin — the 
older wizard lies buried in a green mound near 
Drummelzier. Michael traveled the world over, 
Oxford, Paris, Bologna, Palermo, Toledo, and 
finally, perhaps because his wizardry had sent 
him like a wandering Jew from place to place, 
back to the Border, his home country, where he 
came and served the Evil One. Dante places 
him in the Purgatory of those who attempt blas- 
phemously to tear the veil of the future. The 
thirteenth century was not the time in which 
to increase knowledge, whether of this world 
or the next. Even to-day perhaps we save a 
remnant of superstition, and we would not 
boast 

"I could say to thee 
The words that cleft the Eildon hills in three." 



30 The Spell of Scotland 

Very dark against the gathering dark of the 
night sky rose the Eildon hills above, cleft in 
three by the wizardry of Scot. To that height 
on the morrow I should climb, for it is there 
that Sir Walter Scott, a later wizard, had car- 
ried our Washington Irving, just a century ago, 
and shown him all this Borderland — ^which lay 
about me under the increasing cover of night. 

*'I can stand on the Eildon Hill and point out 
forty- three places famous in war and verse," 
Sir Walter said to our Irving. '^I have brought 
you, like a pilgrim in the Pilgrim's Progress, 
to the top of the Delectable Mountains, that I 
may show you all the goodly regions hereabouts. 
Yonder is Lammermuir and Smailholm; and 
there you have Galashiels and Torwoodelee and 
Gala Water; and in that direction you see 
Teviotdale and the Braes of Yarrow; and Et- 
trick stream winding along like a silver thread 
to throw itself into the Tweed. It may be per- 
tinacity, but to my eye, these gray hills and all 
this wild Border country have beauties peculiar 
to themselves. When I have been for some time 
in the rich scenery about Edinburgh, which is 
like an ornamented garden land, I begin to wish 
myself back again among my own honest gray 
hills; and if I did not see the heather at least 
once a year, I think I should die. ' ' 



Scotts-Land 31 



On the morrow. But for to-night it was 
enough to remember that perfect picture as 
imagination painted it in Andrew Lang's 
verse — 

"Three crests against tlie saffron sky, 
Beyond the purple plain, 
The kind remembered melody 
Of Tweed once more again. 

"Wan water from the Border hills, 
Dear voice from the old years, 
Thy distant music lulls and stills, 
And moves to quiet tears, 

"Like a loved ghost thy fabled flood 

Fleets through the dusky land; 
Where Scott, come home to die, has stood, 
My feet returning, stand. 

"A mist of memory broods and floats, 
The Border waters flow; 
The air is full of ballad notes 
Borne out of long ago. 

"Old songs that sung themselves to me. 
Sweet through a boy's day dream. 
While trout below the blossom'd tree 
Plashed in the golden stream. 

"Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill, 
Fair and too fair you be; 
You tell me that the voice is still 
That should have welcomed me." 



32 The SpeU of Scotland 

I did not miss tlie voice, any of the voices. 
They whispered, they sang, they crooned, they 
keened, about me. For this was Melrose, mael 
ros, so the old Celtic goes, "the naked head- 
land in the wood." And I was seeing, was 
hearing, what I have come to see and hear; I, 
a Scot, if far removed, if in diluted element, 
and Scott 's from the reading days of Auld Lang 
Syne. 

And should I not within the moonlight see 
the white lady rise from the Haly Wheel I And 
should I not see the moonlight flooding the Ab- 
bey, Melrose Abbey? Out of a remembered 
yesterday, out of a confident midnight — surely 
there was a budding morrow in this midnight — 
I remembered the lines — 

"If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, 
Go visit it by the pale moonlight; 
For the gay beams of lightsome day 
Gild but to flout the ruins gray. 
When the broken arches are black in night, 
And each shafted oriel glimmers white, 
When the cold light's uncertain shower 
Streams on the ruined central tower; 
When buttress and buttress alternately 
Seem framed of ebon and ivory; 
When silver edges the imagery, 
And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die ; 
When distant Tweed is heard to rave, 
And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave, 



Scotts-Land 33 



Then go — but go alone the while — 
Then view St. David's ruined pile; 
And, home returning, soothly swear 
Was never scene so sad and fair." 

The moon did not rise that night. 

I walked about the fields, lingered about the 
Cross in the market, looked expectantly at the 
Abbey, until two in the morning. 

"It was near the ringing of matin bell, 
The night was well nigh done." 

The moon did not rise, and neither did the 
white lady. It was not because there was a 
mist, a Scottish mist, over the heavens; they 
were clear, the stars were shining, and the pole 
star held true, Charles ' wain — as Charles should 
in Bonnie Scotland — held true to the pole. But 
it was a late July moon, and those Eildon hills 
and their circling kin rose so high against the 
night sky — daytime they seemed modest enough 
— that the moon in this latitude as far north as 
Sitka did not circle up the sky. Neither does 
the sun in winter, so the guardian explained to 
me next day. 

Fair Melrose is fairest, o' nights, at some 
later or earlier time of the year. It was then 
that I resolved to return in December, on De- 
cember 27, when the festival of St. John's is 
celebrated with torch lights in the ruins of the 



34 The Spell of Scotland 

Abbey — and Michael Scot comes back to his 
own ! But then I reflected that the moon is not 
always full on the Eve of St. John's. 

"I cannot come, I must not come, 

I dare not come to thee. 
On the Eve of. St. John's, I must walk alone, 
In thy bower I may not be." 

I chose, years later, an October moon, in 
which to see it ' ' aright. ' ' 

Viewed by day, Melrose is surely fair; fair 
enough to enchant mortal vision. It is the love- 
liest ruin in the land where reform has meant 
ruin, and where from Kelso to Elgin, shattered 
fanes of the faith proclaim how variable is the 
mind of man through the generations, and how 
hostile when it forsakes. 

Melrose is an old foundation. In truth the 
monastery was established at old Melrose, two 
miles farther down the Tweed, and is so lovely, 
so dramatic a corner of the Tweed, that Doro- 
thy Woodsworth declared, "we wished we could 
have brought the ruins of Melrose to this spot." 
She missed the nearby murmur of the river as 
we do. 

This oldest harbour of Christianity was 
founded in the pagan world by monks from 
lona. Therefore by way of Ireland and not 
from Eome, blessed by Saint Columba sixty 



Scotts-Land 35 



years before Saint Augustine came to Canter- 
bury. It was the chief "island" between lona 
and Lindisfarne. Very haughty were these 
monks of the West. "Eome errs, Alexandria 
errs, all the world errs ; only the Scots and the 
Britons are in the right." There is surely 
something still left of the old spirit in Scotia, 
particularly in spiritual Scotia. 

Near Melrose was born that Cuthbert who 
is the great saint of the North, either side the 
Border, and who lies in the midst of the splen- 
dour of Durham. A shepherd, he watched his 
sheep on these very hills round about us, and 
saw, when abiding in the fields, angels ascend- 
ing and descending on golden ladders. Enter- 
ing Melrose as a novice he became prior in 664, 
and later prior at Lindisfarne. When the 
monks were driven from the Holy Island by the 
Danes they carried the body of St. Cuthbert 
with them for seven years, and once it rested 
at Melrose — 

"O'er northern mountain, marcli and moor, 
From sea to sea, from shore to shore, 
Seven years St. Cuthbert's corpse they bore, 
They rested them in fair Melrose; 
But though alive he loved it well, 
Not there his relies might repose." 

When King David came to the making of 



36 The Spell of Scotland 



Scotland, lie came into the Middle Marches, and 
finding them very lovely— even as you and I— 
this '^sair sanct to the Croon," as his Scottish 
royal descendant, James VI saw him— and 
James would have fell liked to be a saint, but 
he could accomplish neither sinner nor saint, 
because Darnley crossed Mary in his veins- 
David determined to build him fair Abbeys. 
Of which, Melrose, "St. David's ruined pile," 
is the fairest. He brought Cistercians from 
Eievaulx in Yorkshire, to supplant the Culdees 
of lona, and they builded them a beautiful stone 
Melrose to supplant the wooden huts of old 
Melrose. It centered a very active monastic 
life, where pavements were once smooth and 
lawns were close-clipped, and cowled monks in 
long robes served God, and their Abbot lorded 
it over lords, even equally with kings. 

But it stood on the highway between Dunferm- 
line and London, between English and Scottish 
ambitions. And it fell before them. Edward I 
spared it because the Abbots gave him fealty. 
But Edward II, less royal in power and in taste, 
destroyed it. The Bruce rebuilded it again, 
greater splendour rising out of complete ruin. 
When Eichard II came to Scotland he caused 
the Abbey to be pillaged and burned. And when 
Hertford came for Henry VIII, after the Thirty 



Bcotts-Land 37 



Nine Articles had annulled respect for build- 
ings under tlie protection of Eome, the final 
ruin came to St. David's church-palace. Yet, 
late as 1810, church service, reformed, of 
course, was held in a roofed-over part of the 
Abbey ruin. To-day it is under the protection 
of the Dukes of Buccleuch. And, we remember 
as we stand here, while the beams of lightsome 
day gild the ruin, the mottoes of the great fam- 
ily of the Border, Luna Cornua Reparahit, 
which being interpreted is, ''There'll be moon- 
light again. ' ' Then to light the raids, the reiv- 
ing that refilled the larder. But to-morrow for 
scenic effect. 

Examined in this daylight, the beauty of Mel- 
rose surely loses very little. It is one of the 
most exquisite ruins in the United Kingdom, 
perhaps second to Tintern, but why compare? 
It is of finest Gothic, out of France, not out of 
England. In its general aspect it is nobly 
magnificent — 

"The darkened roof rose high aloof 
On pillars, lofty, light and small; 
The keystone that locked each ribbed aisle 
Was a fleur de lys or a quatre feuille, 
The corbels were carved grotesque and grim; 
And the pillars with clustered shafts so trim, 
With base and with capital flourish'd around 
Seem'd bundles of lances which garlands had bound." 



38 The Spell of Scotland 

And, as a chief detail which yields not to 
Tintern or any other, is the east window over 
the high altar, through which the moon and sun 
shines on those buried hearts — 

"The moon on the east oriel shone 
Through slender shafts of shapely stone, 

By foliaged tracery combined. 
Thou would'st have thought some fairy'd hand 
'Twixt poplars straight the osier wand 

In many a freakish knot had twined, 
Then framed a spell when the work was done. 
And changed the willow wreaths to stone. 
The silver light, so pale and faint, 
Showed many a prophet and many a saint. 

Whose image on the glass was dyed, 
Full in the midst his cross of red 
Triumphant Michael brandish'd, 

And trampled on the Apostate's pride; 
The moonbeams kissed the holy pane, 
And threw on the pavement a bloody stain." 



Ahhotsford 

If ''Scott restored Scotland," he built the 
*'keep" which centers all the Scott-land of the 
Border side. 

Two miles above Melrose, a charming walk 
leads to Abbotsford; redeemed out of a swamp 
into at least the most memory-filled mansion 
of all the land. Scott, like the monks, could 



Scotts-Land 39 



not leave the silver wash of the Tweed; and, 
more loving than those who dwelt at Melrose 
and Dryburgh, he placed his Abbot's House 
where the rippling sound was within a stone's 
throw. 

The Tweed is such a storied stream that as 
you walk along, sometimes across sheep-cropped 
meadows, sometimes under the fragant rus- 
tling bough and athwart the shifting shadows 
of oak, ash, and thorn — Puck of Pook's hill 
must have known the Border country in its most 
embroidered days — you cannot tell whether or 
not the deep quiet river is the noblest you have 
seen, or the storied hills about are less than 
the Delectable mountains. 

The name ''Tweed" suggests romance — un- 
less instead of having read your Scott you have 
come to its consciousness through the home- 
spun, alas, to-day too often the factory-spun 
woolens, which are made throughout all Scot- 
land, but still in greatest length on Tweed- 
side. 

Dorothy Wordsworth, winsome marrow, who 
loved the country even better than William, I 
trow — only why remark it when he himself 
recognized how his vision was quickened 
through her companionship? — ^has spoke the 
word Tweed — ' ' a name which has been sweet in 



40 The SpeU of Scotland 



my ears almost as far back as I can remember 
anything. ' ' 

The river comes from high in the Cheviot 
hills, where East and West Marches merge and 
where — 

"Annan, Tweed, and Clyde 
Rise a' out o' ae hillside." 

And down to the sea it runs, its short hun- 
dred miles of story — 

"All througli the stretch of the stream. 
To the lap of Berwick Bay." 

As you walk along Tweedside, you feel its en- 
chantment, you feel the sorrow of the thousands 
who through the centuries have exiled them- 
selves from its banks, because of war, or be- 
cause of poverty, or because of love — 

"Therefore I maun wander abroad. 
And lay my banes far frae the Tweed." 

But now, you are returned, you are on your 
way to Abbotsford, there are the Eildons, 
across the river you get a glimpse of the Cat- 
rail, that sunken way that runs along the bound- 
ary for one-half its length, and may have 
been a fosse, or may have been a concealed road 
of the Romans or what not. Scott once leaped 
his horse across it, nearly lost his life, and did 
lose his confidence in his horsemanship. 



Scotts-Land 41 



"And all through the summer morning 
I felt it -a joy indeed 
To whisper again and again to myself, 
This is the voice of the Tweed." 

It is not possible to approach Abbotsford, as 
it should be approached, from the riverside, the 
view with which one is familiar, the view the 
pictures carry. Or, it can be done if one would 
forego the walk, take it in the opposite direction, 
and come hither by rail from Galashiels — ^that 
noisy modern factory town, once the housing 
place for Melrose pilgrims, which to-day speaks 
nothing of the romance of Gala water, and 
surely not these factory folk "can match the 
lads o' Gala Water." It is a short journey, 
and railway journeys are to be avoided in this 
land of by-paths. But there, across the water, 
looking as the pictures have it, and as Scott 
would have it, rises Abbotsford, turreted and 
towered, engardened and exclusive. 

It stands on low level ground, for it is re- 
deemed out of a duckpond, out of Clarty hole. 
Sir Walter "wished to possess the Border, or 
as much of it as might be, so he made this first 
purchase of a hundred acres in 1811. As he 
wrote to James Ballantyne — 

"I have resolved to purchase a piece of 
ground sufficient for a cottage and a few fields. 



42 The Spell of Scotland 

There are two pieces, either of which would suit 
me, but both would make a very desirable prop- 
erty indeed, and could be had for between 
7,000 and 8,000 pounds, or either separate for 
about half that sum. I have serious thoughts 
of one or both." 

He began with one, and fourteen years later, 
when the estate had extended to a thousand 
acres, to the inclusion of many fields, sheep- 
cropped and story-haunted, he entered in his 
diary — 

'*Abbotsford is all I can make it, so I am re- 
solved on no more building, and no purchases 
of land till times are more safe. ' ' 

By that time the people of the countryside 
called him "the Duke," he had at least been 
knighted, and was, in truth, the Chief of the 
Border ; a royal ambition which I doubt not he 
cherished from those first days when he read 
Percy under a platanus. 

He paid fabulous prices for romantic spots, 
and I think would have bought the entire 
Border if the times had become safer, in those 
scant seven years that were left to him. 
Even Scott could be mistaken, for he bought 
what he believed was Huntlie Bank, where 
True Thomas had his love affair with the fair 
ladye — 



Scotts-Land 43 



"True Thomas lay on Huntlie Bank; 

A ferlie lie spied wi' his e'e; 
And there he saw a ladye bright 

Come riding down by the Eildon tree. 

"Her skirt was o' the grass-green silk, 
Her mantle o' the velvet fyne; 
At ilka tett o' her horse's mane 
Hung fifty siller bells and nine." 

And now the experts tell ns that it is not 
Huntlie Bank at all, but that is in an entirely 
different direction, over toward Ercildoune and 
the Rhymer's Tower. 

There is a satisfaction in this to those of us 
who believe in fairies and in Scott. For fairies 
have no sense of place or of time. And of 
course if they knew that Scott wished them to 
have lived at his Huntlie Bank, they straight- 
way would have managed to have lived there. 
Always, as you go through this land of romance, 
or any romance land, and wise dull folk dispute, 
you can console yourself that Scott also was 
mistaken(?). 

The castle began with a small cottage, not 
this great pile of gray stone we can see from 
the railway carriage across the Tweed, into 
which we make our humble way through a 
wicket gate, a restrained walk, and a basement 
doorway. ''My dreams about my cottage go 



44 The Spell of Scotland 

on, ' ' he wrote to Joanna Baillie, as we all dream 
of building cottages into castles. *'My pres- 
ent intention is to have only two spare bed- 
rooms," but ''I cannot relinquish my Border 
principles of accommodating all the cousins and 
duniwastles, who will rather sleep on chairs, 
and on the floor, and in the hay-loft, than be ab- 
sent when folks are gathered together. ' ' 

So we content ourselves with being duni- 
wastles, whatever that may be, and are confident 
that Sir Walter if he were alive would give us 
the freedom of the castle. 

In any event, if we feel somewhat robbed of 
any familiar intercourse, we can remember that 
Euskin called this ''perhaps the most incongru- 
ous pile that gentlemanly modernism ever de- 
signed." This may content the over-sensitive 
who are prevented ever hearing the ripple of 
the Tweed through the windows. 

Scott was a zealous relic hunter, and if you 
like relics, if you can better conjure up persons 
through a sort of transubstantiation of person- 
ality that comes by looking on what the great 
have possessed, there can be few private collec- 
tions more compelling than this of Abbotsford. 

In the library are such significant hints for 
reconstruction as the blotting book wherewith 
Napoleon cleared his record, the crucifix on 



Scotts-Land 45 



which Queen Mary prayed, the quaigh of her 
great great and last grandson, the tumbler from 
which Bobbie Burns drank — one of them — the 
purse into which Rob Roy thrust his plunder, 
the pocket book of Flora MacDonald, which held 
nothing I fear from the generosity of the Bon- 
nie Prince. 

In the armoury are Scott's own gun, Rob 
Roy's gun, dirk and skene dhu, the sword of 
Montrose, given to that last of the great Cava- 
liers by his last king, Charles I, the pistol of 
Claverhouse, the pistol of Napoleon, a hunting 
flask of James III; and here are the keys of 
Loch Leven castle, dropped in the lake by Mary 
Queen's boatman; and the keys of the Edin- 
burgh Tolbooth turned on so many brave men, 
yes, and fair women, in the old dividing days, 
of Jacobite and Covenanter. 

The library of Scott, twenty thousand vol- 
umes, still lines the shelves, and one takes par- 
ticular interest in this place, and its little stair- 
way whereby ascent is made to the balcony, also 
book-lined, and escape through a little doorway. 
When Scott first came to the cottage of Ab- 
botsford he wrote, furiously, in a little window 
embrasure with only a curtain between him and 
the domestic world. Here he had not only a 
library, but a study, where still stands the desk 



46 The Spell of Scotland 

at which the Waverleys were written, and the 
well-worn desk chair. 

After he had returned from Italy, whither he 
went in search of health and did not find it, he 
felt, one day, a return of the old desire to 
write, the ruling passion. He was wheeled to 
the desk, he took the pen, — nothing came. He 
sank back and burst into tears. As Lockhart 
reports it — ''It was like Napoleon resigning his 
empire. The scepter had departed from Judah ; 
Scott was to write no more." 

Scott has always seemed like a contemporary. 
Not because of his novels ; I fear the Waverleys 
begin to read a little stilted to the young genera- 
tion, and there are none left to lament with 
Lowell that he had read all of Scott and now he 
could never read him all over again for the first 
time. It is rather because Scott the man is so 
immortal that he seems like a man still living; 
or at least like one who died but yesterday. 
Into the dining-room where we cannot go — and 
perhaps now that we think it over it is as well — 
he was carried in order that out of it he might 
look his last on "twilight and Tweed and Eildon 
hill." And there he died, even so long ago as 
September, 1832. 

''It was a beautiful day," that day we seem 
almost to remember as we stand here in the 



Scotts-Land 47 



vivid after glow, "so warm that every window 
was wide open, and so peacefully still that the 
sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the 
gentle ripple of the Tweed, was distinctly 
audible. ' ' 



DryhurgJi 

Five days after they carried him to rest in 
the Abbey — rival certainly in this instance of 
The Abbey of England, where is stored so much 
precious personal dust. The time had become 
thrawn ; dark skies hung over the Cheviots and 
the Eildon, and over the haughs of Ettrick and 
Yarrow; the silver Tweed ran leaden, and 
moaned in its going; there was a keening in 
the wind. 

The road from Abbotsford past Melrose to 
Dryburgh is — ^perhaps — the loveliest walk in 
the United Kingdom ; unless it be the road from 
Coventry past Kenilworth to Stratford. It was 
by this very way that there passed the funeral 
train of Scott, the chief carriage drawn by 
Scott's own horses. Thousands and thousands 
of pilgrims have followed that funeral train; 
one goes to Holy Trinity in Stratford, to the 
Invalides in Paris, but one walks to Dryburgh 



48 The Spell of Scotland 

through the beautiful Tweedside which is all 
a shrine to Sir Walter. 

The road runs away from the river to the 
little village of Darnick, with its ivy-shrouded 
tower, across the meadows to the bridge across 
the river, with the ringing of bells in the ear. 
For it was ordered on that September day of 
1832, by the Provost, *Hhat the church bell shall 
toll from the time the funeral procession 
reaches Melrose Bridge till it passes the village 
of Newstead." 

I do not suppose the people of this country- 
side, who look at modern pilgrims so sympa- 
thetically, so understandingly, have ever had 
time to forget; the stream of pilgrims has 
been so uninterrupted for nearly a century. 
Through the market-place of Melrose it passed, 
the sloping stony square, where people of the 
village pass and repass on their little village 
errands. And it did not stop at the Abbey. 

The day was thickening into dusk then; it 
is ripening into sunset glory to-day. And the 
Abbey looks very lovely, and very lonely. And 
one wonders if Michael Scot did not call to 
Walter Scott to come and join the quiet there, 
and if the dust that once was the heart of Bruce 
did not stir a little as the recreator of Scotland 
was carried by. 



Scotts-Land 49 



To the village of Newstead you move on ; with 
the sound of innnemorial bells falling "on the 
ear, and pass through the little winding street 
— and wonder if the early Eoman name of 
Trimontium, triple mountains, triple Eildon, 
was its first call name out of far antiquity as 
Scott believed. 

Then the road ascends between hedgerows, 
and begins to follow the Tweed closely — and 
perhaps you meet pilgrims on Leaderfoot 
bridge who have come the wrong way. There 
is a steep climb to the heights of Bemersyde, 
where on the crest all Melrose Glen lies beauti- 
fully storied before you. And here you pause 
— as did those horses of Scott's, believing their 
master would fain take one last look at his fa- 
vourite view. 

There is no lovelier landscape in the world, 
or in Scotland. The blue line of the Cheviots 
bars back the world, the Dunion, the Euberslaw, 
the Eildon rise, and in the great bend of the 
river with richly wooded braes about is the site 
of Old Melrose. Small wonder he paused to 
take farewell of all the country he had loved 
so well. 

The road leads on past Bemersyde village 
with woodlands on either side, and to the east, 
near a little loch, stands Sandyknowe Tower. 



50 The Spell of Scotland 

Near the tower lies the remnant of the vil- 
lage of Smailholm, where Scott was sent out of 
Edinburgh when only three years old. It is in 
truth his birthplace, for without the clear air 
of the Border he would have followed the other 
Scott children ; and without the romance of the 
Border he might have been merely a barrister. 

Sandyknowe is brave in spite of its ruin, for 
it is built of the very stone of the eternal hills, 
and has become part of the hills. From its bal- 
cony, sixty feet high, a beautiful Scottish pan- 
orama may be glimpsed, and here Scott brought 
Turner to make his sketch of the Border. And 
here, because a kinsman agreed to save Sandy- 
knowe Tower from the mortality that comes 
even to stone if Scott would write a ballad and 
make it immortal, is laid the scene of "Eve of 
St. John's" — with these last haunting intangible 
lines — 

■ "There is a nun in Dryburgli bower 
Ne'er looks upon the sun; 
There is a monk in Melrose tower 
He speaketh a word to none." 

Then, back to the Tweed, where the river 
sweeps out in a great circle, and leaves a penin- 
sula for Dryburgh. The gray walls of the ruin 
lift above the thick green of the trees ; yew and 
oak and sycamore close in the fane. 



Scotts-Land 51 



Druid and Culdee and Eoman have built 
shrines in this lovely spot, but to-day pilgrim- 
age is made chiefly because in the quiet shel- 
tered ruined St. Mary 's aisle sleeps Sir Walter. 
It would make one-half in love with death to 
think of being buried in so sweet a place. 

Dry burgh is also one of St. David's founda- 
tions, in the '^ sacred grove of oaks," the Darach 
Bruach of the worship that is older than Augus- 
tus or Columba. These were white monks that 
David brought up from Alnwick where his 
queen had been a Northumbrian princess, and 
their white cloaks must have seemed, among 
these old old oaks, but the white robes of the 
Druids come back again. 

It is a well-kept place, vines covering over the 
crumbling gray stone, kept by the Lords of 
Buchan. And, perhaps too orderly, too fanci- 
ful, too ''improved"; one likes better the ac- 
knowledged ruin of Melrose, and one would 
prefer that Sir Walter were there with his kin, 
instead of here with his kindred. But this is a 
sweet place, a historic place, begun by Hugh de 
Moreville, who was a slayer of Thomas a Becket, 
and was Constable of Scotland. His tomb is 
marked by a double circle on the floor of the 
Chapter House, and there is nothing of the 
Chapter House; it is open to beating rain and 



52 The Spell of Scotland 

scorching sun — fit retribution for his most foul 
deed. 

It is not this remembrance you carry away, 
but that of St. Mary's aisle, in 

"Dryburgh where with chiming Tweed 
The lintwhites sing in chorus." 



CHAPTER III 

BOEDER TOWNS 

Kelso 

['T is a very great little country which lies 
all about Melrose, with never a bend of 
the river or a turn of the highway or 
a shoulder of the hill, nay, scarce the shadow 
of any hazel bush or the piping of any wee bird 
but has its history, but serves to recall what 
once was; and because the countryside is so 
teeming seems to make yesterday one with to- 
day. The distances are very short, even be- 
tween the places the well-read traveler knows; 
with many places that are new along the way, 
each haunted with its tradition, soon to haunt 
the traveler, while the people he meets would 
seem to have been here since the days of the 
Winged Hats. 

Perhaps in order to get into the center of 
the ecclesiastical country — for after this being 
a Borderland, and a Scott-land, it is decidedly 
Abbots-land, even before Abbotsf ord came into 

53 



54 The Spell of Scotland 

being with its new choice of old title — the trav- 
eler will take train to Kelso, or walk there, a 
scant dozen miles from Melrose. 

The journey is down the Tweed, which opens 
ever wider between the gentle hills that are 
more and more rounding as the flow goes on to 
the sea. There is not such intense loneliness; 
here is the humanest part of the Scottish land- 
scape, and while even on this highway the cot- 
tages are not frequent, and one eyes the jour- 
neymen with as close inspection as one is eyed, 
still it is a friendly land. The southern burr — 
we deliberately made excuse of drinking water 
or asking direction in order to hear it — is softer 
than in the North; yet, you would not mistake 
it for Northumberland. We wondered if this 
was the accent Scott spoke with ; but to him must 
have belonged all the dialect-voices. 

It was at Eoxburgh Castle that King David 
lived when he determined to build these abbeys 
of the Middle Marches, of which the chief four 
are Melrose, Dryburgh, Jedburgh and Kelso, 
with Holyrood as their royal keystone. 

Eoxburgh was a stronghold of the Border, 
and therefore met the fate of those strongholds, 
when one party was stronger than the other; 
usually the destruction was by the English be- 
cause they were farther away and could hold 



Border Towns 55 

the country only through making it desolate. 

Who would not desire loveliness and desire 
to fix it in stone, if he lived in such a lovely 
spot as this where the Tweed and Teviot meet? 
David had been in England. He was brother 
to the English queen Maude, wife of Henry I, 
and had come in contact with the Norman cul- 
ture. Or, as William of Malmesbury put it, 
with that serene assurance of the Englishman 
over the Scot, he ''had been freed from the rust 
of Scottish barbarity, and polished from a boy 
from his intercourse and familiarity with us." 
Ah, welladay! if residence at the English court 
and Norman culture resulted in these lovely ab- 
beys, let us be lenient with William of Malmes- 
bury. Incidentally David added to the Scot- 
land of that time certain English counties, 
Northumberland and Cumberland and West- 
moreland — as well as English culture ! 

David was son to Saxon Margaret, St. Mar- 
garet, and from her perhaps the ''sair sanct" 
inherited some of his gentleness. But also he 
had married Matilda of Northumberland, 
wealthy and a widow, and he preferred to re- 
main on the highway to London rather than at 
Dunfermline. So he was much at Eoxburgh. 

But the castle did not remain in Scottish or 
English hands. It was while curiously inter- 



56 The Spell of Scotland 

ested in a great Flemish gun that James II was 
killed by the explosion — and the siege of Eox- 
burgh went on more hotly, and the castle was 
razed to its present low estate. 

To-day the silly sheep are cropping grass 
about the scant stones that once sheltered kings 
and defied them; and ash trees are the sole oc- 
cupants of the once royal dwelling. To the 
American there is something of passing inter- 
est in the present seat of the Duke of Eoxburgh, 
Floors castle across the Teviot. For the house, 
like many another Scottish house, still carries 
direct descent. And an heiress from America, 
like the heiress from Northumberland, unites 
her fortune with this modern splendour — and 
admits Americans and others on Wednesdays! 

The town of Kelso is charming, like many 
Tweed towns. It lies among the wooded hills ; 
there is a greater note of luxury here. Scott 
called it ''the most beautiful if not the most 
romantic village in Scotland." Seen from the 
bridge which arches the flood, that placid flood 
of Tweed, and a five-arched bridge ambitiously 
and successfully like the Waterloo bridge of 
London, one wonders if after all perhaps 
Wordsworth wrote his Bridge sonnet here — 
''Earth hath not anything to show more fair." 
Surely this bridge, these spires and the great 



Border Towns 57 

tower of the Abbey, ''wear the beauty of the 
morning," the morning of the world. The 
hills, luxuriously wooded, rise gently behind, 
the persistent Eildons hang over, green mead- 
ows are about, the silver river runs — and the 
skies are Scottish skies, whether blue or gray. 

The Abbey, of course, is the crown of the 
place, bolder in design and standing more boldly 
in spite of the havoc wrought by men and time, 
and Hertford and Henry VIII; calmer than 
Melrose, less ornamental, with its north portal 
very exquisite in proportion. 

The Abbot of Kelso was in the palmy early 
days chief ecclesiastic of Scotland, a spiritual 
lord, receiving his miter from the Pope, and 
armoured with the right to excommunicate. 

There have been other kings here than David 
and the Abbot. The latter days of the Stew- 
arts are especially connected with Kelso, so near 
the Border. Baby James was hurried hither 
and crowned in the cathedral as the III after 
Roxburgh. Mary Queen lodged here for two 
nights before she rode o-n to Berwick. Here in 
the ancient market-place, looking like the square 
of a continental town, the Old Chevalier was 
proclaimed King James VIII on an October 
Monday in 1715, and the day preceding the Eng- 
lish chaplain had preached to the troops from 



58 The Spell of Scotland 

the text — ''The right of the first born is his." 
Quite differently minded from that Whig min- 
ister farther north, who later prayed ''as for 
this young man who has come among us seeking 
an earthly crown, may it please Thee to bestow 
upon him a heavenly one. ' ' 

When this Eising of the Forty Five came, 
and he who should have been Charles III (ac- 
cording to those of us who are Scottish, and 
royalist, and have been exiled because of our 
allegiance) attempted to secure the throne for 
his father, he established his headquarters at 
Sunilaw just outside Kelso; the house is in 
ruins, but a white rose that he planted still 
bears flowers. To the citizens of Kelso who 
drank to him, the Prince, keeping his head, and 
having something of his royal great uncle's 
gift of direct speech, replied, "I believe you, 
gentlemen, I believe you. I have drinking 
friends, but few fighting ones in Kelso." 

Scott knew Kelso from having lived here, 
from going to school here, and it was in out of 
the Kelso library — ^where they will show you 
the very copy — that he first read Percy's 
Eeliques. 

*'I remember well the spot ... it was be- 
neath a huge platanus, in the ruins of what 
had been intended for an old fashioned arbour 



Border Towns 59 

in the garden. . . . The summer day had sped 
onward so fast that notwithstanding the sharp 
appetite of thirteen, I forgot the dinner hour. 
The first time I could scrape together a few 
shillings I bought unto myself a copy of the 
beloved volumes; nor do I believe I ever read 
a book half so frequently or with half the en- 
thusiasm." 

Was it not a nearer contemporary to Percy, 
and a knight of romance. Sir Philip Sidney, who 
said, "I never read the old song of Percie and 
Douglas that I found not my heart moved more 
than with a trumpet " ? 

For myself I have resolutely refused to iden- 
tify the word, Platanus, lest it should not be 
identical with the spot where I first read my 
Percy. 

Scott also knew Kelso as the place of his first 
law practice, and of his honeymoon. Here 
flowered into maturity that long lavish life, so 
enriched and so enriching of the Border. 

Horatio Bonar was minister here for thirty 
years — I wondered if he wrote here, ^'1 was a 
wandering sheep." 

While James Thomson, who wrote **The 
Seasons," but also ''Eule, Britannia" — ^if he 
was a Scotsman; perhaps this was an Act of 
Union — 



60 The Spell of Scotland 

"Rule, Britannia, rale the waves; 
Britons never will be slaves !" 

was born at a little village nearby, back in the 
low hills of Tweed, in 1700, seven years before 
the Union. 

Jedburgh 

From Kelso I took train to the Border town 
which even the Baedeker admits has had "a 
stormy past," and where the past still lingers; 
nay, not lingers, but is ; there is no present in 
Jedburgh. It is but ten miles to the Border; 
more I think that at any other point in all the 
blue line of the Cheviot, is one conscious of the 
Border ; consciousness of antiquity and of geog- 
raphy hangs over Jedburgh. 

It lies, a hill town, on the banks of the Jed; 
*' sylvan Jed" said Thomson, "crystal Jed" 
said Burns ; a smaller stream than the Tweed, 
more tortuous, swifter, rushing through wilder 
scenery, tumultuous, vocative, before Border 
times began — ^if ever there were such a time 
before — and disputatious still to remind us that 
this is still a division in the kingdom. 

One of the most charming walks in all Scot- 
land — and I do not know of any country where 



Border Towns 61 

foot-traveler's interest is so continuous (I 
wrote this before I had read the disastrous 
walking trip of the Pennell's) — is up this valley 
of the Jed a half dozen miles, where remnants of 
old forest, or its descendants, still stand, where 
the bracken is thick enough to conceal an army 
crouching in ambush, where the hills move 
swiftly up from the river, and break sharply 
into precipices, with crumbling peel towers, 
watch towers, to guard the heights, and where 
outcropping red scars against the hill mark 
sometimes the entrance to caves that must have 
often been a refuge when Border warfare 
tramped down the valley. 

In Jedburgh we lodged not at the inn; al- 
though the name of Spread Eagle much at- 
tracted us ; but because every one who had come 
before us had sought lodging, we, too, would 
* ' lodge, " if it be but for a night. 

Mary Queen had stayed at an old house, still 
standing in Queenstreet, Prince Charles at a 
house in Castlegate, Burns in the Canongate, 
the Wordsworths, William and Dorothy, in 
Abbey Close, because there was no room in 
the inn. I do not know if it were the Spread 
Eagle then, but the assizes were being held, 
Jethart justice was being administered, or, 
juster justice, since these were more parlous 



62 The Spell of Scotland 

times, and parley went before sentence. Scott as 
a sheriff and the other officials of the country- 
were filling the hostelry. But Sir Walter, then 
the Sheriff of Selkirk, sheriff being a position 
of more 'legality" than with us, and no doubt 
remembering his first law case which he had 
pled at Jedburgh years before, came over to 
Abbey Close after dinner, and according to 
Dorothy Wordsworth ' ' sate with us an hour or 
two, and repeated a part of the ' Lay of the Last 
Minstrel.' " 

Think of not knowing whether it was an hour 
or two hours, with Scott repeating the ''Lay," 
and in Jedburgh. 

We lodged in a little narrow lane, near the 
Queen in the Backgate, with a small quaint gar- 
den plot behind; there would be pears in sea- 
son, and many of them, ripening against these 
stone walls. The pears of the Border are 
famous. Our landlady was removed from 
Yetholm only a generation. Yetholm is the 
gipsy capital of this countryside. And we won- 
dered whether Meg Faa, for so she ambitiously 
called herself, by the royal name of Scottish 
Eomany, was descended from Meg Merrilies. 
Mrs. Faa had dark flashing eyes in a thin dark 
face, and they flashed like a two-edged dagger. 
She was a small woman, scarce taller than a 



Border Towns 63 

Jethart ax as we had seen them in the museum 
at Kelso. I should never have dared to ask 
her about anything, not even the time of day, 
and, in truth, like many of the Scotch women, 
she had a gift of impressive silence. All the 
night I had a self-conscious feeling that some- 
thing was going to happen in this town of Jed, 
and in the morning when I met Mrs. Faa again 
and her eyes rather than her voice challenged 
me as to how I had slept, I should not have 
dared admit that I slept with one eye open 
lest I become one more of the permanent ghosts 
of Jed. 

The Abbey is, in its way, its individual way, 
most interesting of the chief four of '*St. 
David's piles." It is beautifully lodged, be- 
side the Jed, near the stream, and the stream 
more a part of its landscape; smooth-shaven 
English lawns lie all about, a veritable ec- 
clesiastical close. It is simpler than Melrose, 
if the detail is not so marvelous, and there is 
substantially more of it. The Norman tower 
stands square ; if witches still dance on it they 
choose their place for security. The long 
walls of the nave suggest almost a restoration — ■ 
almost. 

When the Abbey flourished, and when Alex- 
ander III was king, he was wedded here (1285) 



64 The SpeU of Scotland 

to Joleta, daughter of the French Count de 
Dreux. Always French and Scotch have felt 
a kinship, and often expressed it in royal mar- 
riage. The gray abbey walls, then a century 
and a half old, must have looked curiously down 
on this gay wedding throng which so possessed 
the place, so dispossessed the monks, Austin 
friars come from the abbey of St. Quentin at 
Beauvais. 

Suddenly, in the midst of the dance, the King 
reached out his hand to the maiden queen — 
and Death, the specter, met him with skeleton 
fingers. It may have been a pageant trick, it 
may have been a too thoughtful monk; but the 
thirteenth century was rich with superstition. 
Six months later Alexander fell from his horse 
on a stormy night on the Fife coast — and 
the prophetic omen was remembered, or con- 
structed. 

The Abbey was newly in ruin when Mary 
Queen rode down this way, only twenty-one 
years after Hertford's hurtful raid. Court was 
to be held here, the assizes of October, 1566, at 
this Border town. For the Border had been 
over-lively and was disputing the authority of 
the Scottish queen as though it had no loyalty. 
Bothwell had been sent down as Warden of the 
Marches to quell the marauding free-booters. 



Border Towns 65 

He had met with Little Jock Elliott, a Jethart 
callant, a Border bandit, to whom we can for- 
give much, because of the old ballad. 

"My castle is aye my ain, 

An' berried it never shall be; 
For I maun fa' ere it's taen, 

An' wba daur meddle wi' me? 
Wi' my knit in the rib o' my naig, 

My sword hangin' domi by my knee, 
For man I am never afraid, 
An' wba daur meddle wi' me? 
Wba daur meddle wi' me, 
Wba daur meddle wi' me? 
Oh, my name is little Jock Elliott, 
An' wba daur meddle wi' me? 

"I munt my gude naig wi' a will 

When the fray's in the wind, an' be 
Cocks his lugs as he tugs for the bill 

That enters the south countrie, 
Where pricking' and spurring are rife. 

And the bluid boils up like the sea. 
But the Southrons gang doon i' the strife, 

An' wba daur meddle wi' me?" 

And perhaps we can forgive the reiver, since 
he dealt a blow to Bothwell that those of us who 
love Mary have longed to strike through the 
long centuries. Bothwell took Elliott in cus- 
tody, Elliott not suspecting that a Scot could 
prove treacherous like a Southron, and was 
carrying him to the Hermitage. Jock asked 



66 The Spell of Scotland 

pleasantly what would be his fate at the as- 
size. 

*'Gif ane assyises wald mak him clene, he was 
hertlie contentit, but he behuvit to pas to the 
Quenis grace." 

This was little promise to little Jock Elliott. 
He fled. Bothwell chased. Bothwell fired, 
wounded Jock, overtook him, and Jock managed 
to give Bothwell three vicious thrusts of his 
Skene dhu — '*Wha daur meddle wi' me!" — be- 
fore Bothwell 's whinger drove death into little 
Jock Elliott. 

Bothwell, wounded, perhaps to death, so word 
went up to Edinburgh, was carried to the 
Hermitage. 

Buchanan, the scandalous chronicler of the 
time — there were such in Scotland, then, and 
always for Mary — set down that "when news 
thereof was brought to Borthwick to the Queen, 
she flingeth away in haste like a madwoman by 
great journeys in post, in the sharp time of win- 
ter, first to Melrose, and then to Jedworth. ' ' 

It happened to be the crisp, lovely, truly Scot- 
tish time, October, and Mary opened court at 
Jedburgh October 9, presiding at the meetings 
of the Privy Council, and then rode to the Her- 
mitage October 16. She rode with an escort 
which included the Earl of Moray, the Earl of 



Border Towns 67 

Huntley, Mr. Secretary Lethington, and more 
men of less note. For six days the girl queen 
(Mary was only twenty-four in this year of the 
birth of James, year before the death of Darn- 
ley, the marriage with Bothwell, the imprison- 
ment at Loch Leven) had been mewed to state 
affairs, and a ride through the brown October 
woods, thirty miles there and thirty miles back 
again, must have lured the queen who was al- 
ways keen for adventure, whether Bothwell was 
the goal, or just adventure. 

The mist of the morning turned to thick rain 
by night, and the return ride was made in in- 
creasing wet and darkness. Once, riding ahead 
and alone and rapidly, the Queen strayed from 
the trail, was bogged in a mire, known to-day as 
the Queen's Mire, and rescued with difficulty. 

Next day Mary lay sick at Jedburgh, a sick- 
ness of thirty days, nigh unto death. News was 
sent to Edinburgh, and bells were rung, and 
prayers offered in St. Giles. On the ninth day 
she lay unconscious, in this little town of Jed- 
burgh, apparently dead, twenty years before 
Fotheringay. *' Would God I had died at Jed- 
burgh. ' ' 

She did not die. Darnley visited her one day, 
coming from Glasgow. Bothwell came as soon 
as he could be moved, and the two made 



68 The Spell of Scotland 

convalescence together in this old house of 
Jedburgh, perhaps the happiest house of all 
those where the legend of Mary persists. Even 
to-day it has its charm. The windowed turret 
looks out on the large fruit garden that stretches 
down to the Jed, very like that very little tur- 
ret of ''Queen Mary's Lookout" at Eoscoff 
where the child queen had landed in France less 
than twenty years before. 

Five years later, when Mary was in an Eng- 
lish prison, a proclamation was read in her 
name at the town cross of Jedburgh, the herald 
was roughly handled by the Provost who re- 
ceived his orders from England, and Buccleuch 
and Ker of Fernihurst revenged themselves by 
hanging ten loyal (?) citizens who stood with 
the Provost. 

Later, a century later, when at the town cross 
the magistrates were drinking a health to the 
new sovereign, a well-known Jacobite came by. 
They insisted on his joining in the toast. And 
he pledged — ''confusion to King William, and 
the restitution of our sovereign and the heir!" 
Bravo, the Borderers! 



Border Towns 69 



Selkirk 

Tlie sentimental journeymen — with whom I 
count myself openly — may hesitate to visit Yar- 
row. It lies so near the Melrose country, and is 
so much a part of that, in song and story, that 
it would seem like leaving out the fragrance of 
the region to omit Yarrow. And yet — . One 
has read ''Yarrow Unvisited," one of the love- 
liest of Wordsworth's poems. And one has 
read "Yarrow Visited." And the conclusion 
is too easy that if the unvisitings and visitings 
differ as much as the poems it surely were bet- 
ter not to "turn aside to Yarrow," to accept 
it as 

"Enough if in our hearts we know 
There's such a place as Yarrow. . . . 
For when we're there although 'tis fair, 
'Twill be another Yarrow." 

There is peril at times in making a dream 
come true, in translating the dream into reality, 
in lifting the mists from the horizon of imagina- 
tion. Should one hear an English skylark, an 
Italian nightingale f should one see Carcassonne, 
should one visit Yarrow? 

Ah, welladay. I have heard, I have seen. 



70 The Spell of Scotland 

Just at first, because no dream can ever quite 
come true, not the dream of man in stone, or 
of song in bird-throat, or even of nature in 
trees and sky and hills, there is a disappoint- 
ment. But after the reality these all slip away 
into the misty half-remembered things, even 
Carcassonne, even Yarrow ; the dream enriched 
by the vision, the vision softened again into 
dream. 

And so, I will down into Yarrow. 

Coaches run, or did before the war, and will 
after the war, through the pleasant dales of 
Yarrow and Moffat, dales which knew battles 
long ago and old unhappy far off things, but 
very silent now, too silent ; almost one longs for 
a burst of Border warfare that the quiet may 
be filled with fitting clamour. The coaches meet 
at Tibbie Shiel's on St. Mary's and it is to 
Tibbie's that you are bound, as were so many 
gallant gentlemen, especially literary gentle- 
men, before you. 

Selkirk is the starting point. And Selkirk is 
a very seemly, very prosperous town, looking 
not at all like an ecclesiastic city, as it started 
to be in the dear dead days of David the saint, 
looking very much as a hill city in Italy will 
look some day when Italy becomes entirely *' re- 
deemed" and modern, and exists for itself in- 



Border Towns 71 

stead of for the tourist. Selkirk is indifferent 
to tourists, as indeed is every Scottish town; 
Scotland and Scotsmen are capable of existing 
for themselves. Selkirk hangs against the hill- 
side above the Ettrick, and its show places are 
few; the spot where Montrose lodged the night 
before the defeat at Philipshaugh, the statue of 
Scott when he was sheriff, "shirra," the statue 
of Mungo Park near where he was given his 
medical training, and the home of Andrew 
Lang. 

There is no trace of the ''kirk o' the shiel- 
ings, ' ' founded by the rehgious from lona, from 
which by way of Scheleschyrche came Selkirk. 
Nor is there trace of Davis 's pile, ruined or un- 
ruined, in this near, modern, whirring city. It 
is the sound of the looms one remembers in Sel- 
kirk, making that infinity of yards of Scotch 
tweed to clothe the world. Selkirk and Gala- 
shiels and Hawick form the Glasgow of the 
Border. 

Always industrious, in the time of Flodden 
it was the "souters of Selkirk" who marched 
away to the Killing — 

"Up wi' the S outers of Selkirk 
And down wi' the Earl o' Home." 

These same souters — shoemakers — were busy 
in the time of Prince Charles Edward and con- 



72 The Spell of Scotland 

tracted to furnish two thousand pair of shoes 
to his army; but one does not inquire too closely 
into whether they furnished any quota of the 
four thousand feet to go therein. 

It was a warm sunny day when I made my 
pilgrimage up the Yarrow to St. Mary's. Al- 
though Yarrow has always sung in my ears, I 
think it was rather to see one sight that I came 
for the first time to Scotland, to see 

"The swan on still St. Mary's Lake 
Float double, swan and shadow." 

I rather think it was for this I had journeyed 
across the Atlantic and up the East coast route. 
Such a sentimental lure would I follow. But 
then, if that seems wasteful and ridiculous ex- 
cess of sentiment, let us be canny enough, Scotch 
enough, to admit that one sees so many other 
things, incidentally. 

The ''wan waters" of the Yarrow were shim- 
mering, glimmering, in the morning light as I 
coached out of Selkirk, and by Carterhaugh. 

"I forbid ye, maidens a', 

That wear gowd in your hair, 

To come or gae by Carterhaugh ; 

For young Tamlane is there." 

These round-shouldered hills, once covered 
with the Wood of Caledon, and the Forest of 



Border Towns 73 

Ettrick, and the Forest of Yarrow, are very 
clear and clean in their green lawns to-day, 
scarce an ancient tree or a late descendant 
standing; here and there only gnarled and de- 
formed, out of the centuries, out of perhaps 
that "derke forest" of James IV. His son, the 
Fifth James, thought to subdue the Border and 
increase his revenue by placing thousands of 
sheep in this forest ; and these ruining the trees 
have decreased the tourists' rightful revenue. 
It is because of this absence of trees that one 
is perhaps more conscious of the shining ribbon 
of river; longer, clearer stretches may be seen 
in the green plain : 

"And is tMs — ^Yarrow? This the stream 

Of which my fancy cherished 
So faithfully a waking dream? 

An image that has perished! 
that some minstrel's harp were near 

To utter notes of gladness, 
And chase this silence from the air 

That fills my heart with sadness!" 

About Philipshaugh, two miles from Selkirk, 
the trees are in something of large estate, with 
oak and birch and fir and rowan, making dark 
shadows in the fair morning, as the historically 
minded traveler would fain have it. For it was 
there that Montrose met defeat, his small band 
against Leslie 's many men. All about there lie 



74 The Spell of Scotland 

legends of his fight and his flight across the 
Minchmoor and on to the North. 

And through here Scott loved to wander. 
Here he let the Minstrel begin his Last Lay — 

"He paused where Newark's stately Tower 
Looks down from Yarrow's birchen bower." 

And it was hither the Scotch poet came with 
Wordsworth, as the English poet describes it — 

"Once more by Newark's Castle gate 
Long" left without a warder, 
I stood, looked, listened, and with Thee 
Great Minstrel of the Border." 

Nearby, and near the highways, is the de- 
serted farm cottage, the birthplace of Mungo 
Park, who traveled about the world even as you 
and I, and I fancy his thought must often have 
returned to the Yarrow. 

The driver will point out the Trench of Wal- 
lace, a redout a thousand feet long, on the 
height to the North ; and here will come into the 
Border memories of another defender of Scot- 
land who seems rather to belong to the North 
and West. 

Soon we reach the Kirk of Yarrow, a very 
austere ** reformed" looking basilica, dating 
back to 1640, which was a reformed date, set 
among pleasant gardens and thick verdure. 



Border Towns 75 

Scott and Wordsworth and Hogg have wor- 
shiped here, and from its ceiling the heraldic 
devices of many Borderers speak a varied 
history. 

Crossing the bridge we are swiftly, unbe- 
lievingly, on the Dowie Dens of Yarrow. 

"Yestreen I dream'd a dolefu' dream; 

I fear there will be sorrow! 
I dream'd I pu'd the heather green, 
Wi' my true love on Yarrow. 

"But in the glen strive armed men; 

They've wrought me dole and sorrow; 
They've slain — the eomeliest knight they've slain — 
He bleeding lies on Yarrow. 

"She kiss'd his cheek, she kaim'd his hair, 
She search'd his wounds all thorough; 
She kiss'd them till her lips grew red, 
On the dowie houms of Yarrow." 

Then we come into the country of Joseph 
Hogg. The farm where he was tenant and 
failed, for Hogg was a shepherd and a poet, 
which means a wanderer and a dreamer. And 
soon to the Gordon Arms, a plain rambling ce- 
ment structure, where Hogg and Scott met by 
appointment and took their last walk together. 

Hogg is the spirit of all the Ettrick place. 
Can you not hear his skylark — "Bird of the 
wilderness, blithesome and cumberless" — in 



76 The Spell of Scotland 

that far blue sky above Altrive, where he died 
— *'0h, to abide in the desert with thee!" 

And now the driver tells us we are at the 
Douglass Glen, up there to the right lies the 
shattered keep of the good Lord James Doug- 
lass, the friend of Bruce. Here fell the 
"Douglass Tragedy," and the bridle path from 
Yarrow to Tweed is still to be traced. 

"0 they rade on and on they rade, 
And a' by the light of the moon, 
Until they came to yon wan water, 
And there they lighted down." 



St. Mary's 

And soon we are at St. Mary's Loch — which 
we have come to see. To one who comes from 
a land of lakes, from the Land of the Sky Blue 
Water, there must be at first a sudden rush of 
disappointment. This is merely a lake, merely 
a stretch of water. The hills about are all 
barren, rising clear and round against the sky. 
They fold and infold as though they would 
shield the lake bereft of trees, as though they 
would shut out the world. Here and there, but 
very infrequent, is a cluster of trees; for the 
most part it is water and sky and green heathery 




INTERIOR VIEW, TIBBIE SHIELDS INN. 



Border Towns 77 

hills. The water is long and narrow, a small 
lake as our American lakes go, three miles by 
one mile ; but large as it looms in romance, rich 
as it bulks in poetry. 

Tibbie Shiel's is, of course, our goal. One 
says Tibbie Shiel's, as one says Eitz-Carlton, 
or the William the Conqueror at Dives. For 
this is the most celebrated inn in all Scotland, 
and it must be placed with the celebrated inns 
of the world. There is no countryside better 
sung than this which lies about St. Mary's, and 
no inn, certainly not anywhere a country inn, 
where more famous men have foregathered to 
be themselves. Perhaps the place has changed 
since the most famous, the little famed days, 
when Scott stopped here after a day's hunting, 
deer or Border song and story, up Meggatdale ; 
and those famous nights of Christopher North 
and the Ettrick shepherd, nights deserving to 
be as famous as the Arabian or Parisian or 
London. The world has found it out, and times 
have changed, as a local poet complains — 

"Sin a' the world maun gang 
And picnic at St. Mary's." 

The inn, a rambling white house, stands on 
a strip between two waters, added to no doubt 
since Tibbie first opened its doors, but the 



78 The Spell of Scotland 

closed beds are still there — it was curious 
enough to see them the very summer that the 
Graham Moffatts played ^'Bunty" and ''The 
Closed Bed" — and the brasses which Tibbie 
polished with such housewifely care. 

For Tibbie was a maid in the household of 
the Ettrick shepherd's mother. She married, 
she had children, she came here to live. Then 
her husband died, and quite accidentally Tibbie 
became hostess to travelers, nearly a hundred 
years ago. For fifty-four years Tibbie herself 
ran this inn ; she died in what is so short a time 
gone, as Scottish history goes, in 1878. 

During that time hosts of travelers, particu- 
larly, wandered through the Border, came to 
this "wren's nest" as North called it. Hogg, 
of course, was most familiar, and here he wished 
to have a ' 'bit monument to his memory in some 
quiet spot f orninst Tibbie 's dwelling. ' ' He sits 
there, in free stone, somewhat heavily, a shep- 
herd's staff in his right hand, and in his left 
a scroll carrying the last line from the ' ' Queen's 
"Wake" — "Hath tayen the wandering winds to 
sing. ' ' 

Edward Irving, walking from Kirkcaldy to 
Annan, was here the first year after Tibbie 
opened her doors so shyly. Carlyle, walking 
from Ecclefechan to Edinburgh, in his student 



Border Towns 79 

days, caught his first glimpse of Yarrow from 
here — and slept, may it be, in one of these closed 
beds? Gladstone was here in the early '40 's 
during a Midlothian campaign. Dr. John 
Brown — "Eab" — came later, and even E. L. S. 
knew the hospitality of Tibbie ShiePs when 
Tibbie was still hostess. 

It is a long list and a brave one. In this very 
dining-room they ate simply and abundantly, 
after the day's work; in this ''parlour" they 
continued their talk. And surely St. Mary's 
Lake was the same. 

Down on the shore there stands a group of 
trees, not fir trees, though these are most native 
here. And here we loafed the afternoon away 
— for fortunately we were the only ones who 
''picnic at St. Mary's." There were the gen- 
tleman and his wife whom we took for journal- 
istic folk, they were so worldly and so intelli- 
gent and discussed the world and the possibili- 
ties of world-war — ^that was several years 
ago — until at the Kirk of Yarrow the local min- 
ister, Dr. Borlund, uncovered this minister, 
James Thomson, from Paisley. If all the 
clergy of Scotland should become as these, aus- 
terity of reform would go and the glow of cul- 
ture would come. 

We all knew our history and our poetry of 



80 The Spell of Scotland 

this region, but none so well as the minister. 
It was he who recited from Marmion that de- 
scription which is still so accurate — 

"By lone St. Mary's silent Lake; 
Thou know'st it well — nor fen nor sedge 
Pollute the clear lake's crystal edge; 
Abrupt and sheer the mountains sink 
At once upon the level brink; 
And just a trace of silver strand 
Marks where the water meets the land. 
Far in the mirror, bright and blue, 
Each hill's huge outline you may view; 
Shaggy with heath, but lonely, bare, 
Nor tree nor bush nor brake is there. 
Save where of land, yon silver line 
Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine. 
Yet even this nakedness has power. 
And aids the feelings of the hour; 
Nor thicket, dell nor copse you spy, 
Where living thing conceal'd might lie; 
Not point, retiring, hides a dell 
Where swain, or woodman lone might dwell; 
There's nothing left to fancy's guess, 
You see that all is loneliness; 
And silence aids — ^though the steep hills 
Send to the lake a thousand rills; 
In summer time, so soft they weep. 
The sound but lulls the ear asleep; 
Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude, 
So stilly is the solitude." 

Across the water is the old graveyard of van- 
ished St. Mary's kirk. And it was the low- 



Border Towns 81 



voiced minister's wife— a Babbie a little re- 
moved — who knew 

"What boon to lie, as now I lie, 

And see in silver at my feet 
St. Mary's Lake, as if the sky 
Had fallen 'tween those hills so sweet, 
And this old churchyard on the hill, 

That keeps the green graves of the dead, 
So calm and sweet, so lone and wild still. 

And but the blue sky overhead." 

We sat in the silences, the still silent after- 
noon, conscious of the folk verse that goes— 

"St. Mary's Loch lies shimmering still. 
But St. Mary's kirkbell's lang dune ringing." 

Suddenly, over the far rim of the water, my 
eye caught something white, and then another, 
and another. And I knew well that were I but 
nearer, as imagination knew was unnecessary, 
I might see the swan on still St. Mary's Lake, 
and their shadow breaking in the water. 



CHAPTEE IV 

THE EMPRESS OF THE NORTH 

SUPPOSE the Scotsman who has been 
horn in Edinburgh may have a pardon- 
able reluctance in praising the town, may 
hesitate in appraising it; Stevenson did; Scott 
did not. And I suppose if one cannot trace his 
ancestry back to Edinburgh, or nearly there, 
but must choose some of the other capitals of 
the world as his ancestral city, one might be- 
grudge estate to Edinburgh. 

I have none of these hesitations, am ham- 
pered by none of these half and half ways. Be- 
ing an American, with half a dozen European 
capitals to choose from if I must, and having 
been born in an American capital which is 
among the loveliest-I think the loveliest-I 
dare choose Edinburgh as my dream city. I 
dare fling away my other capital claims, and 
all modification, ever Scotch moderation, to de- 
clare without an ''I think" or 'Hhey say," Ed- 
inburgh is the most beautiful, the most roman- 
tic, the singular city of the world. 

82 



The Empress of the North 83 

Those who come out of many generations of 
migration grow accustomed to choosing their 
quarter of the world ; they have come from many 
countries and through nomadic ancestors for 
a century, or two, or three. And perhaps they, 
themselves, have migrated from one state to 
another, one city to another. Every American 
has had these phases, has suffered the sea 
change and the land. Surely then he may adopt 
his ancestral capital, as correctly as he adopts 
his present political capital. 

It shall be Edinburgh. And while Constan- 
tinople and Rio and Yokohama may be splendid 
for situation, they have always something of 
foreign about them, they can never seem to 
touch our own proper romance, to have been 
the setting for our play. Edinburgh is as 
lovely, and then, the chalice of romance has been 
lifted for centuries on the high altar of her 
situation. 

Edinburgh is a small city, as modern cities 
go; but I presume it has many thousands of 
population, hundreds of thousands. If it were 
Glasgow numbers would be important, fixative. 
But Edinburgh has had such a population 
through the centuries that to cast its total with 
only that of the souls now living within her 
precincts were to leave out of the picture those 



84 The Spell of Scotland 

shadowy and yet brilliant, ever present genera- 
tions, who seem all to jostle each other on her 
High street, without respect to generations, if 
there is very decided respect of simple toward 
gentle. 

Edinburgh is, curiously, significantly, di- 
vided and scarce united, into Old Town and 
New Town. And yet, the Old Town with its 
ancient lands so marvelously like modern tene- 
ments, and its poverty which is of no date and 
therefore no responsibility of ours, is neither 
dead nor deserted, and is still fully one-half 
the town. While New Town, looking ever up 
to the old, looking across the stretch to Leith, 
and to the sea whence came so much threaten- 
ing in the old days, and with its memories of 
Hume and Scott who are ancient, and of Steven- 
son, who, in spite of his immortal youth, does 
begin to belong to another generation than ours 
— New Town also, to a new American, is some- 
thing old. It has all become Edinburgh, two 
perfect halves of a whole which is not less per- 
fect for the imperfect uniting. 

There is no city which can be so "observed." 
I venture that when you have stood on Castle 
Hill — on the High Street with its narrow open- 
ing between the lands framing near and far 
pictures — on Calton Hill — when you have been 



The Empress of the North 85 

able to ''rest and be thankful" at Corstorphine 
Hill — when you have climbed the Salisbury 
crags — when you have mounted to Arthur's 
Seat and looked down as did King Arthur be- 
fore there was an Edinburgh — you will believe 
that not any slightest corner but fills the eye 
and soul. 

There is, of course, no single object in Edin- 
burgh to compare with objects of traveler's in- 
terest farther south. The castle is not the 
Tower, Holyrood is a memory beside Windsor, 
St. Giles is no Canterbury, St. Mary's is not St. 
Paul's, the Royal Scottish art gallery is meager 
indeed, notwithstanding certain rare riches in 
comparison with the National. But still one 
may believe of any of these superior objects, as 
T. Sandys retorted to Shovel when they had 
played the game of matching the splendours of 
Thrums with those of London and Shovel had 
named Saint Paul's, and Tommy's list of na- 
tive wonders was exhausted, but never Tommy 
— ''it would like to be in Thrums!" All these 
lesser glories go to make up the singular glory 
which is Edinburgh. 



The Spell of Scotland 



The Castle 

And there is the castle. Nowhere in all the 
world is castle more strategically set to guard 
the city and to guard the memories of the city 
and the beauty. 

For the castle is Edinburgh. It stood there, 
stalwart in the plain, thousands and thousands 
of years ago, this castle hill which invited a 
castle as soon as man began to fortify himself. 
It has stood here a thousand years as the bul- 
wark of man against man. Certain it will stand 
there a thousand years to come. And after — 
after man has destroyed and been destroyed, or 
when he determines that like night and the sea 
there shall be no more destruction. Castle Hill 
is immortal. 

Always it has been the resort of kings and 
princes. First it was the keep of princesses, 
far back in Pictish days before Christian time, 
this ' ' Castell of the Maydens. ' ' From 987 b. c. 
down to 1566, when Mary was lodged here for 
safe keeping in order that James might be born 
safe and royal, the castle has had royalties in 
its keeping. It has kept them rather badly in 
truth. While many kings have been born here, 



E^5sSf 



^^M': 

r^v 




The Empress of the North 87 

few kings have died in its security; almost all 
Scottish kings have died tragically, almost all 
Scottish kings have died young, and left their 
kingdom to some small prince whose regents 
held him in this castle for personal security, 
while they governed the realm, always to its 
disaster. 

There is not one of the Stewart kings, one of 
the Jameses, from First to Sixth, who did not 
come into the heritage of the kingdom as a baby, 
a youth; even the Fourth, who rebelled against 
his father and won the kingdom — and wore a 
chaiu. around his body secretly for penance. 
And these baby kings and stripling princes 
have been lodged in the castle for safe keeping, 
prologues to the swelling act of the imperial 
theme. 

History which attempts to be exact begins 
the castle in the seventh century, when Edwin 
of Deira fortified the place and called it Ed- 
win's burgh. It was held by Malcolm Can- 
more, of whom and of his Saxon queen Mar- 
garet, Dunfermline tells a fuller story; held 
against rebels and against English, until Mal- 
colm fell at Alnwick, and Margaret, dead at 
hearing the news, was carried secretly out of 
the castle by her devoted and kingly sons. 

After Edward I took the castle, for half a 



88 The Spell of Scotland 

century it was variously held by the English 
as a Border fortress. Once Bruce retook it, a 
stealthy night assault, up the cliffs of the west, 
and The Bruce razed it. Eebuilt by tha Third 
Edward, it was taken from this king by a clever 
ruse planned by the Douglass, Black Knight of 
Liddesdale. A shipload of wine and biscuits 
came into harbour, and the unsuspecting castel- 
lan, glad to get such precious food in the far 
north, purchased it all and granted delivery 
at dawn next morning. The first cart load up- 
set under the portcullis, the gate could not 
be closed, the cry '*A Douglass," was raised, 
and the castle entered into Scottish keeping, 
never to be *' English" again until the Act of 
Union. 

Henry IV and Richard II attempted it, but 
failed. Eichard III entered it as friend. For 
three years it was held for Mary by Kirkcaldy, 
while the city was disloyal. Charles I held it 
longer than he held England, and Cromwell 
claimed it in person as part of the Protectorate. 
Prince Charles, the Third, could not take it, 
contented himself with the less castellated, more 
palatial joys, of Holyrood; a preference he 
shared with his greatest grandmother. 

To-day perhaps its defense might be bat- 
tered down, as some one has suggested, ''from 



The Empress of the North 89 

the Firth by a Japanese cruiser. ' ' But it looks 
like a Gibraltar, and it keeps impregnably the 
treasures of the past; as necessary a defense, 
I take it, as of any material treasure of the 
present. 

If you are a king you must wait to enter ; sum- 
mons must be made to the Warder, and it must 
be certain you are the king; even Edward VII, 
most Stewart of recent kings had to prove him- 
self not Edward I, not English, but ^' Union." 
If you are a commoner you know no such diffi- 
culties. 

First you linger on the broad Esplanade 
where a regiment in kilts is drilling, perhaps 
the Black Watch, the Scots Greys. No doubt 
of late it has been tramped by regiments of the 
"First Hundred Thousand" and later, in train- 
ing for the wars. 

As an American you linger here in longer 
memory. For when Charles was king — ^the 
phrase sounds recent to one who is eternally 
Jacobite — this level space was a part of Nova 
Scotia, and the Scotsmen who were made nobles 
with estates in New Scotland were enfeoffed on 
this very ground. So close were the relations 
between old and new, so indifferent were the 
men of adventuring times toward space. 

Or, you linger here to recall when Cromwell 



h 



90 The Spell of Scotland 

was burned in effigy, along with ''his friend the 
Devil." 

You pass through the gate, where no wine 
casks block the descent of the portcullis, and 
the castle is entered. There are three or four 
points of particular interest. 

Queen Margaret's chapel, the oldest and 
smallest religious house in Scotland, a tiny place 
indeed, where Margaret was praying when word 
was brought of the death of Malcolm in battle, 
and she, loyal and royal soul, died the very 
night while the enemies from the Highlands, 
like an army of Macbeth 's, surrounded the 
castle. The place is quite authentic, Saxon in 
character with Norman touches. I know no 
place where a thousand years can be so swept 
away, and Saxon Margaret herself seems to 
kneel in the perpetual dim twilight before the 
chancel. 

There is Mons Meg, a monstrous gun indeed, 
pointing its mouth toward the Forth, as though 
it were the guardian of Scotland. A very pre- 
tentious gun, which was forged for James II, 
traveled to the sieges of Dumbarton and of Nor- 
ham, lifted voice in salute to Mary in France on 
her marriage to the Dauphin, was captured by 
Cromwell and listed as "the great iron mur- 
derer, Muckle Meg," and "split its throat" in 



The Empress of the North 91 

saluting the Duke of York in 1682, a most 
Jacobite act of loyalty. After the Eising of 
the Forty Five this gun was taken to London, 
as though to take it from Scotland were to take 
the defense from Jacobitism. But Sir Walter 
Scott, restoring Scotland, and being in much 
favour with George IV, secured the return of 
Mons Meg. It was as though a prince of the 
realm has returned. Now, the great gun, large 
enough to shoot men for ammunition, looks, 
silently but sinisterly, out over the North Sea. 

History comes crowding its events in memory 
when one enters Old Parliament Hall. It is 
fitly ancestral, a noble hall with an open tim- 
bered roof of great dignity, with a collection 
of armour and equipment that particularly re- 
equips the past. And in this hall, under this 
roof, what splendour, what crime ! Most crim- 
inal, the ''black dinner" given to the Black 
Douglasses to their death. Unless one should 
resent the dinner given by Leslie to Crom- 
well, when there was no black bull's head 
served. 

By a secret stair, which commoners and Ja- 
cobites may use to-day, communication was had 
with the Eoyal Lodgings, and often must Queen 
Mary have gone up and down those stairs, 
carrying the tumult of her heart, the perplexity 



92 The SpeU of Scotland 

of her kingdom ; for Mary was both woman and 
sovereign. 

The Royal Lodgings contain Queen Mary's 
Eooms, chiefly; the other rooms are negligible. 
It is a tiny bedchamber, too small to house the 
eager soul of Mary, but very well spaced for 
the niggard soul of James. One merely ac- 
cepts historically the presence of Mary here; 
there is too much intertwining of ''H" and 
'*M." No Jacobite but divorces Darnley from 
Mary, even though he would not effect divorce 
with gunpowder. King James I, when he re- 
turned fourteen years after to the place where 
he was VI, made a pilgrimage to his own birth- 
room on June 19, 1617. I suppose he found the 
narrow space like unto the Majesty that doth 
hedge a king. 

Mary must have beat her heart against these 
walls as an eagle beats wings against his cage. 
She never loved the place. Who could love it 
who must live in it? It was royally hung; 
she made it fit for living, with carpets from 
Turkey, chairs and tables from France, gold 
hangings that were truly gold for the bed, and 
many tapestries with which to shut out the 
cold — eight pictures of the Judgment of Paris; 
four pictures of the Triumph of Virtue ! 

Here she kept her library, one hundred and 



The Empress of the North 93 

fifty-three precious volumes — where are they 
now 1 ' ' The Queen readeth daily after her din- 
ner," wrote Eandolph, English envoy, to his 
queen, ''instructed by a learned man, Mr. 
George Buchanan, somewhat of Lyvie." 

And I wondered if here she wrote that 
Prayer which but the other day I came upon in 
the bookshop of James Thin, copied into a book 
of a hundred years back, in a handwriting that 
has something of Queen Mary's quality in it — 

"0 Domine Deus! 
Speravi in te; 
care mi lesu! 
Nunc libera me: 
In dura catena, 
In misera poena 
Desidero te; 
Languendo, gemendo, 
Et genufleetendo 
Adoro, imploro, 
Ut liberes me!" 

Her windows looked down across the city 
toward Holyrood. Almost she must have heard 
John Knox thunder in the pulpit of St. Giles, 
and thunder against her. And, directly be- 
neath far down she saw the Grassmarket. 
Sometimes it flashed with gay tournament folk ; 
for before and during Mary's time all the world 
came to measure lances in Edinburgh. Some- 



94 The Spell of Scotland 

times it swarmed with folk come to watch an 
execution ; in the next century it was filled in the 
''Killing Time," with Covenanter mob applaud- 
ing the execution of Eoyalists, with Eoyalist 
mob applauding the execution of Covenanters; 
Mary's time was not the one "to glorify Grod in 
the Grassmarket. " 

At the top of the market, near where the West 
Bow leads up to the castle, was the house of 
Claverhouse, who watched the killings. At the 
bottom of the market was the West Port 
through which Bonnie Dundee rode away. 

"To the Lords of Convention, 'twas Claverhouse spoke, 
Ere the king's crown go down there are crowns to be broke, 
So each cavalier who loves honour and me. 
Let him follow the bonnet of Bonnie Dundee. 
Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can. 
Come saddle my horses and call up my men. 
Fling all your gates open, and let me gae free. 
For 'tis up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee." 

And to-day, but especially on Saturday 
nights, if you care to take your life, or your 
peace in hand, you can join a strange and rather 
awful multitude as it swarms through the Grass- 
market, more and more drunken as midnight 
comes on, and not less or more drunken than 
the mob which hanged Captain Porteous. 

It is a decided relief to look down and find 



The Empress of the North 95 

the White Hart Inn, still an inn, where Doro- 
thy and William Wordsworth lodged, on Thurs- 
day night, September 15, 1803 — ^'It was not 
noisy, and tolerably cheap. Drank tea, and 
walked up to the Castle. ' ' 

The Cowgate was a fashionable suburb in 
Mary's time. A canon of St. Andrews wrote 
in 1530, ' ' nothing is humble or lowly, everything 
magnificent." On a certain golden gray after- 
noon I had climbed to Arthur's Seat to see the 
city through the veil of mist — 

"I saw rain falling and the rainbow drawn 
On Lammermuir. Harkening I heard again 
In my precipitous city beaten bells 
Winnow the keen sea wind." 

It was late, gathering dusk and rain, when 
I reached the level and thinking to make a short 
cut — this was once the short cut to St. Cuth- 
bert's from Holyrood — ^I ventured into the Cow- 
gate, and wondered at my own temerity. Ste- 
venson reports, ''One night I went along the 
Cowgate after every one was a-bed but the po- 
liceman." Well, if Scott liked to ''put a 
cocked hat on a story," Stevenson liked to put 
it on his own adventures. The Cowgate, in 
dusk rain, is adventure enough. 

Across the height lies Greyfriar's. The 
church is negligible, the view from there superb. 



96 The Spell of Scotland 

the place historic. One year after Jenny Ged- 
des threw her stool in St. Giles and started 
the Eeformation — doesn't it sound like Mrs. 
O'Leary's cow? — the Covenant was signed 
(Feb. 28, 1638) on top of a tomb still shown, 
hundreds pressing to the signing, some signing 
with their blood. The Reformation was on, not 
to be stopped until all Scotland was harried and 
remade. 

I like best to think that in this churchyard, 
on a rainy Sunday, Scott met a charming girl, 
fell in love with her, took her home under his 
umbrella, and, did not marry her— his own ro- 
mance I 

Because no king shall ever wear the crown 
again, nor wave the scepter, nor wield the sword 
of state, the Regalia, housed in the Crown 
Room, and guarded from commoner and king 
by massive iron grating, is more interesting 
than any other appanage of royalty in the 
world. The crown which was worn by Bruce, 
and which sat rather uneasily on the very un- 
steady head of Charles II at what time he was 
crowned at Scone and was scolded, is of pure 
gold and much be jeweled. The scepter, made in 
Paris for James V, carries a beryl, come from 
Egypt three thousand years ago, or, from a 
Druid priest in the mist of time. The sword 



The Empress of the North 97 

was a gift from Pope Julius to James IV; in 
those days the Scottish sovereign was surely 
the ''Most Catholic Majesty." 

England has no ancient regalia; hers were 
thrown into the melting pot by Cromwell. The 
Protector — and Destructor — would fain have 
grasped these ''Honours," but they were spir- 
ited away, and later concealed in the castle. 
Here they remained a hundred and ten years, 
sealed in a great oak chest. The rumour in- 
creased that they had gone to England. And 
finally Sir Walter Scott secured an order from 
George IV to open the chest (Feb. 4, 1818). 

It was a tremendous moment to Scott. Could 
he restore the Honours as well as the country'? 
There they lay, crown of The Bruce, scepter of 
James V, sword of Pope and King. The castle 
guns thundered — ^how Mons Meg must have 
regretted her lost voice! 

And still we can hear the voice of Scott, when 
a commissioner playfully lifted the crown as if 
to place it on the head of a young lady near — 
"No, by God, no!" Never again shall this 
crown rest on any head. That is assured in a 
codicil to the Act of Union. And — it may be 
that other crowns shall in like manner gain a 
significance when they no longer rest on un- 
easy heads. 



98 The Spell of Scotland 

The view from the King's bastion is royal. 
Where is there its superior 1 And only its rival 
from Calton Hill, from Arthur's Seat. The 
Gardens lie below, the New Town spreads out, 
the city runs down to Leith, the Firth shines 
and carries on its bosom the Inchkeith and the 
May; the hills of Fife rampart the North; the 
Highlands with Ben Lomond for sentinel form 
the purple West ; and south are the Braid hills 
and the heathery Pentlands — the guide has 
pointed through a gap in the castle wall to the 
hills and to the cottage at Swanston. 

"City of mists and rain and blown gray spaces, 

Dashed with the wild wet colour and gleam of tears, 
Dreaming in Holyrood halls of the passionate faces 

Lifted to one Queen's face that has conquered the years. 
Are not the halls of thy memory haunted places 1 

Cometh there not as a moon (where blood-rust sears 
Floors a-flutter of old with silks and laces) 

Gilding a ghostly Queen thro' the mist of tears'? 

"Proudly here, with a loftier pinnacled splendour 

Throned in his northern Athens, what spells remain 
Still on the marble lips of the Wizard, and render 

Silent the gazer on glory without a stain! 
Here and here, do we whisper with hearts more tender, 

Tusitala wandered thro' mist and rain; 
Rainbow-eyes and frail and gallant and slender, 

Dreaming of pirate isles in a jeweled main. 

"Up the Canongate climbeth, cleft a-sunder 

Raggedly here, with a glimpse of the distant sea, 



The Empress of the North 99 

Flashed through a crumbling alley, a glimpse of wonder, 

Nay, for the City is throned in Eternity! 
Hark ! from the soaring castle a cannon's, thunder 

Closeth an hour for the world and an £eon for me, 
Gazing at last from the martial heights whereunder 

Deathless memories roll to an ageless sea." 



High Street 

If the Baedeker with a cantious reservation, 
declares Princes Street "Perhaps" the hand- 
somest in Europe, there is no reservation in the 
guide-book report of Taylor, the "Water Poet," 
who wrote of the High Street in the early Six- 
teen Hundreds, "the fairest and goodliest 
streete that ever my eyes beheld." Surely it 
was then the most impressive street in the 
world. Who can escape a sharp impression 
to-day? It was then the most curious street 
in the world, and it has lost none of its power 
to evoke wonder. 

A causeway between the castle and Holyrood, 
a steep ridge lying between the Nor' Loch 
(where now are the Princes' Gardens) and the 
Sou' Loch (where now are the Meadows, sub- 
urban dwelling) the old height offered the first 
refuge to those who would fain live under the 
shadow of the castle. As the castle became 



100 The Spell of Scotland 

more and more the center of the kingdom, dwell- 
ing under its shadow became more and more im- 
portant, if not secure. The mightiest lords of 
the kingdom built themselves town houses along 
the causeway. French influence was always 
strong, and particularly in architecture. So 
these tall lands rose on either side of the long 
street, their high, many-storied fronts on the 
High Street, their many more storied backs to- 
ward the Lochs. They were, in truth, part of 
the defense of the town; from their tall stories 
the enemy, especially the '*auld enemy," could 
be espied almost as soon as from the castle. 
And the closes, the wynds, those dark tortuous 
alleys which lead between, and which to-day in 
their squalor are the most picturesque corners 
of all Europe, were in themselves means of de- 
fense in the old days when cannon were as often 
of leather as of iron, and guns were new and 
were little more reaching than arrows, and 
bludgeons and skene dhus and fists were the 
final effective weapon when assault was in- 
tended to the city. 

The ridge divides itself into the Lawnmarket, 
the High Street, and the Canongate; St. Giles 
uniting the first two, and the Netherbow port, 
now removed, dividing the last two. 

The Lawnmarket in the old days was near- 



The Empress of the North 101 

royal, and within its houses the great nobles 
lodged, and royalty was often a guest, or a 
secret guest. The High Street was the busi- 
ness street, centering the life of the city, its 
trade, its feuds — "a la maniere d'Edimborg" 
ran the continental saying of fights — ^its re- 
ligion, its executions, its burials. The Canon- 
gate, outside the city proper and outside the 
Flodden wall and within the precincts of Holy- 
rood, therefore regarded as under the protec- 
tion of Holy Church, became the aristocratic 
quarters of the later Stewarts, of the wealthy 
nobles of the later day. 

I suppose one may spend a lifetime in Edin- 
burgh, with frequent days in the Old Town, wan- 
dering the High Street, with the eye never 
wearying, always discovering the new. And I 
suppose it would take a lifetime, born in Old 
Town and of Old Town, to really know the quar- 
ter. I am not certain I should care to spend a 
lifetime here ; but I have never and shall never 
spend sufficient of this life here. It is un- 
savoury of course; it is slattern, it is squalid, 
danger lurks in the wynds and drunkenness 
spreads itself in the closes. If the old warning 
cry of * ' Gardey loo ! " is no longer heard at ten 
o ' the night, one still has need of the answering 
' ' Hand yer hand ! " or, your nose. Dr. Samuel 



102 The Spell of Scotland 

Johnson, walking this street on his first night 
in Edinburgh, arm in arm with Boswell, de- 
clared, ''I can smell you in the dark!" No 
sensitive visitor will fail to echo him to-day. 
There are drains and sewers, there is modern 
sanitation in old Edinburgh. But the habits 
of the centuries are not easily overcome; and 
the Old Town still smells as though with all the 
old aroma of the far years. Still, it is high, it 
is wind-swept — and what of Venice, what of the 
Latin Quarter, what of Mile End, what of the 
East Side? 

But there is still splendour and power, be- 
queathed as Taylor said, ''from antiquitie to 
posteritie," in spite of the decline and the de- 
cay. If the palace of Mary of Lorraine on 
Castle Hill is fallen and the doorways are in 
the Museum — Mary who was mother to Mary 
Queen, and contemporary worthy to Catherine 
of Medici — there are still, at the end of the long 
street, Moray House and Queensberry House. 
Moray is where Cromwell lodged in 1648, and 
gave no hint of what was coming in 1649 ; if he 
had, history might have been different; to-day 
Moray House is the United Free Church Train- 
ing college ! Queensberry House is where lived 
those Queensberry marquises of fighting and 
sporting renown, and where the Marquis lived 



The Empress of the North 103 

who forced through the Act of Union — ' ' There 
ended an old song"; and now it is the Eefuge 
for the Destitute ! 

There is still beauty shining through the dust 
and the cobwebs ; here a doorway with bold in- 
signia and exquisite carving, leading to — no- 
where; here a bit of painting, Norrie's perhaps, 
or a remnant of timbered ceiling; and every- 
where, now as then — ^more now than then, since 
sanitary destruction has had its way here and 
there — glimpses of the city and the moors and 
the mountains. 

It is invidious to compare, to choose from 
these closes. Each has its history, its old habi- 
tations, its old associations, its particular pic- 
turesqueness ; Lady Stair's, Baxter's, Byer's, 
Old Stamp Office, White Horse, and many 
more. 

Through this street what glory that was Scot- 
land has not passed and what degradation, 
what power has not been displayed and what 
abasement? To see it now, filled with people 
and with marching troops in honour of the vis- 
iting king, is to get back a little of ancient his- 
tory, of greater glory. It lends itself to such 
majesty, dull and deserted as it is for the most 
part. 

When the King came to Edinburgh following 



104 The Spell of Scotland 

on his coronation, making a pilgrimage of his 
realm, he came to St. Giles, as has come every 
sovereign of Scotland, from Malcolm who may 
have worshiped in the Culdee church, to 
George in whose honour the chapel of the 
Thistle and the Eose was unveiled. 

"For noo, unfaithfu' to the Lord 
Auld Scotland joins the rebel horde; 
Her human hymn-books on the board 

She noo displays, 
An' Embro Hie Kirk's been restored 
In popish ways." 

On a Sunday morning I hurried to St. Giles 
to see the trooping of the colours. (Later, lis- 
tening to Dr. White, in a recently built reformed 
church on Princes Street, I heard a sermon from 
the text, ''You shall see the king in all his 
beauty.'^ But, no mention of King George! 
It was even as it was in the old days.) 

In truth it was a brave sight to find the High 
Street thronged with people, and the regiments 
marching down from St. Giles to Holyrood. 
The king did not enter town till next day. (I 
saw, with some resentment, over the door of a 
public house, the motto, ''Will ye no come back 
again?") But, somehow, so many kings gone 
on, the play was rather better staged with the 
sovereign not there. I learned then how gor- 



The Empress of the North 105 

geous the old days must have been with their 
colour and glitter and flash. 

I suppose there was a tall land where in my 
day stood and still stands Hogg's hotel, just 
above the Tron Kirk; the lands on the south 
side the High burned a century ago. But, to 
the American gazing down on ancient memories 
and present sovereignties, there was a wonder- 
ful courtesy shown by the hotel. I had inter- 
rupted their quiet Sabbath ; it can still be quiet 
in Edinburgh notwithstanding that a tram car 
carried me on my way hither. The dining- 
room of this hotel looked out on the High, and 
it was breakfast time for these covenanting- 
looking guests from the countryside. But I, 
an invader, was made welcome and given the 
best seat on the balcony; a stranger and they 
took me in. Sometime I shall take up residence 
in this Latin Quarter, and if not in Lady Stair's 
Close, then in Hogg's hotel. The name sounds 
sweeter if you have just come up from Ettrick. 

Nor did I miss the King. For 

"I saw pale kings, and princes too, 

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; 
Who ery'd — 'La Belle Dame sans merci 
Hath thee in thrall !' " 

It was the Belle Dame, it was the Queen, I 
saw most often on the High Street, riding to 



106 The Spell of Scotland 

and fro from the time of the ' ' haar ' ' on her re- 
turn from France, till that last terrible night 
and the ride to Loch Leven. 

After that you may visit the John Knox 
house if you will, and read for your edification 
its motto. '^Lyfe God aboune al and yi nicht- 
bour as yi Self," and buy a book or two in its 
book shop. I took particular pleasure in buy- 
ing a girlish picture of Mary Queen, and a book 
of the poems of Robert Fergusson, neither of 
which would have pleasured John. 

After that you may look at the " I. K. " in the 
pavement, and realize that Dr. Johnson's wish 
for Knox has been fulfilled — ''I hope in the 
highway. ' ' 

After that you may look on the heart stamped 
in the pavement near St. Giles, where once 
stood the Heart of Midlothian, the Old Tol- 
booth. 

There is only one other memory of High 
Street and of Scotland that for me equals that 
of Mary. It is Montrose. Up the Canongate 
comes the rumbling of a tumbril, like the 
French Eevolution. And out of the high lands 
there look the hundreds of Covenanting folk, 
triumphant for the moment. And on the bal- 
cony of Moray House, within which the mar- 
riage of Lady Mary Stewart to the Marquis of 



The Empress of the North 107 

Lome has just been celebrated, there stands 
the wedding party, and among them the Earl 
of Argyle. Up the street comes the cart. And 
within it clad like a bridegroom — ^'fyne scarlet 
coat to his knee, trimmed with silver galoons, 
lined with taffeta, roses in his shoon, and stock- 
ings of incarnet silk" — stands the Marquis of 
Montrose, the loyalest Scotsman that ever 
lived. 

After the field of Kylsyth, after the field of 
Philip shaugh, and the flight to the North and 
the betrayal, he has been brought back to Ed- 
inburgh, to a swift and covenanting sentence, 
and to death at the Tron. 

His eyes meet proudly those of Argyle who 
has deserted his king and who thinks to stand 
in with the Covenant and with the future. It 
is the eyes of Argyle which drop. And Mon- 
trose goes on. 

His head is on the picket of the Netherbow 
Port. His four quarters are sent to the four 
corners of the kingdom, Glasgow, Perth, Aber- 
deen, Inverness. 

But the end is not yet. The tables turn, as 
they turned so often in those unstable times. 
It is Argyle who goes to the scaffold. Charles 
is king, the Second Charles. There is an edict. 
The body of Montrose is dug up out of the 



108 The Spell of Scotland 

Boroughmoor. It is buried in Holyrood. The 
four quarters are reassembled from Glasgow 
and Perth and Aberdeen and Inverness. A 
procession fairly royal moves from Holyrood 
to St. Giles. At the Netherbow it pauses. The 
head is taken down from the pike. The body 
of Montrose is whole again. An honourable 
burial takes place in the cathedral sanctuary. 

Even though when search was made at the 
restoring of the church and the erection of the 
effigy the remains could not be found, there has 
been that justification by procession and by 
faith, that justification of loyalty that we re- 
member when we remember Montrose — 

"He either fears his fate too much, 
Or his deserts are small, 
That dares not put it to the touch, 
To gain or lose it all." 



Holyrood 

Holyrood, ruined as it is, empty as it is, spuri- 
ous as it is, still can house the Stewarts. No- 
where else are they so completely and splendidly 
Stewart. It is the royalest race which ever 
played at being sovereign; in sharp contrast 
with the heavier, more successful Tudors; 




JAMES GKAHAM, MARQUIS OF MONTROSE, 



The Empress of the North 109 



crafty but less crafty than the Medici; amor- 
ous but more loyal than the Bourbons. 

Never did kings claim sovereignty through a 
more divine right— and only one (whisper some- 
times intimates that he was not Stewart, but 
substitute ; but he left a Stewart descent) failed 
to pay the penalty for such assertion. It was 
the splendour which was Stewart while they 
lived, the tragedy that was Stewart when they 
came to die, which makes them the royal race. 
There were born in Holyrood not one of them, 
unless it be James V. But almost all of them 
were married in Holyrood, held here their fes- 
tive days, and, not one of them died in Holy- 
rood. It is their life, the vivid intense flash of 
it, across those times that seem mysterious, 
even legendary in remembered times north of 
the Border. Life was a holiday to each of the 
Stewarts, and he spent it in the palace and in 
the pleasance of Holyrood. 

The Abbey, with the monastery which was 
attached to it, begins far back before the Stew- 
arts. It was founded by David I, the abbey- 
builder. Legend has it that he went a-hunting 
on a holy day, and straying from the '*noys and 
dyn of Bugillis," a white stag came against 
him. David thought to def ond himself, but a 
hand bearing a cross came out of the cloud, and 



110 The Spell of Scotland 

the stag was exorcised. David kept the cross. 
In dream that night within the castle he was 
commanded to build an abbey where he had been 
saved, and the hunting place being this scant 
mile and a quarter from the castle — then a for- 
est where now it is treeless — David placed this 
convenient abbey where it has stood for six cen- 
turies, defying fire and war and reformation, 
until the citizens of Edinburgh ravaged it when 
the roof fell in in the middle of the eighteenth 
century. 

There is a curious feeling when one crosses 
the Girth stones at the lower end of the Canon- 
gate. It is a century and more since this was 
sanctuary. But it is impossible to step across 
these stones, into the ''Liberty of Holyrood," 
and not wonder if there may not perhaps be 
some need in your own soul of sanctuary. 
Thousands and thousands of men — "abbey 
lairds" as they were pleasantly called — ^liave 
stepped across this line before me, through the 
centuries. Who am I to be different, unneed- 
ful? May I not need inviolate sanctuary? 
May it not be that at my heels dogs some sin- 
ister creditor who will seize me by the skirts 
before I reach the boundary beyond which there 
is no exacting for debt? A marvelous thing, 
this ancient idea of sanctuary. It made an oasis 



The Empress of the North 111 

of safety in a savage world. Surely it was 
super-christian. And here, at Holyrood, as the 
medieval statute declares, ''qukilk privelege has 
bene inviolable observit to all maner of per- 
sonis cuman wythin the boundes . . . past 
memorie of man. ' ' What has the modern world 
given itself in place of ancient sanctuary? Jus- 
tice, I suppose, and a jury trial. 

But, once across the Girth, one becomes, not 
a sanctuarian, but a Stewart. 

The situation is a little dreary, a little flat. 
And the palace, as a palace, is altogether un- 
interesting to look on. It is not the building 
of David or of the earlier Stewarts. But of 
that Merry Monarch who harboured so long in 
Prance, when England was determining whether 
it would be royal or republican, and Scotland 
was determining whether it would be cove- 
nanted or uncovenanted. The Merry Monarch 
was ever an uncovenanted person, not at all 
Scottish, although somewhat like the errant 
James — whose errancy was of his own choos- 
ing. Charles had acquired a French taste at 
the court of his cousin, Louis the Grand. So 
the new Holyrood was built in French baronial 
style. And no monarch has ever cared to in- 
habit it for any length of time. Only King Ed- 
ward VII, who would have been a happy sue- 



112 The Spell of Scotland 

cesser to James, but Edward was very studious 
in those days of 1859, when he lodged here and 
studied under the direction of the Sector of 
the Eoyal High School. Still I can but think 
that it was in this Stewart place that Edward 
developed his Stewartship. 

There is not a stone to speak of the magnifi- 
cence, of the strength, of David. The Abbey 
was burned and burned again, by Edward and 
Eichard the Second, and entirely rebuilt when 
the Stewarts were beginning to be splendid and 
assured. Over the west doorway, high-arched 
and deep-recessed, early English in its tech- 
nique, Charles I, who was crowned here in 1633, 
caused the stone to be placed. 

"He shall build ane House for my name and I wiU stablish 
the throne of his kingdom forever." 

The tablet still stands above the doorway. 
But Charles is lying for his sins in a vault at 
St. George's chapel at Windsor far in the south, 
having paid his penalty on the scaffold in 
Whitehall. And the House is in ruins, "bare 
ruined choir," where not even ''the late birds 
sing." Although Mendelssohn in speaking of 
the impression the Abbey made on him, does 
say, "I think I found there the beginnings of 
my Scotch symphony." 

This "magnificent Abbey-Kirk of Halirude" 



The Empress of the North 113 

was no doubt very splendid ; although in archi- 
tectural beauty it cannot compare with Melrose, 
not even the great east window with its rich 
quatrefoil tracing. But what scenes have been 
staged in that historic drama, that theatrical 
piece, we call the history of the Stewarts ! 

Before the high altar, under that east win- 
dow, when James I was kneeling before God in 
prayer, there appeared the Lord of the Isles, 
come repentant from burning Inverness and 
other rebellion, to kneel before the king, his 
own sword pointed at his breast. 

Before this altar James II was married to 
Mary of Gueldres. James III was married to 
Margaret of Denmark, who brought the Ork- 
neys as her dower. James IV was married to 
Margaret Tudor, the union of the ' ' Thistle and 
the Eose." James V was not married here, he 
went to France for his frail bride, Magdalene, 
who lived but seven weeks in this inhospitable 
land, this hospitable Holyrood. She was buried 
in Holyrood chapel, only to be dug up and tossed 
about as common clay when the Edinburgh citi- 
zens made football of royal skulls. 

The two sons of James VI, Henry who should 
have been king and who might have united 
royalist and commoner had fate granted it, 
and Charles who was to become king, were 



114 The Spell of Scotland 

both christened here. James VII, brother to 
Charles II, restored this Chapel Royal and pre- 
pared it for the Roman ritual. James VIII was 
never here, or but as a baby. Charles III — did 
the Bonnie Prince in that brief brilliant Edin- 
burgh moment of his, ever kneel before this 
then deserted altar and ask divine favour while 
he reasserted the divine right of kings? 

Here — or was it secretly, in Stirling? — the 
Queen — one says The Queen and all the world 
knows — gowned in black velvet, at five o'clock 
on a July morning, was married to her young 
cousin, Henry Darnley. A marriage that en- 
dured two long terrible tumultuous years. 

Here — or was it in the drawing-room? — at 
two o'clock on a May morning, the Queen was 
married to Bothwell, by Adam Bothwell, Bishop 
of Orkney, not with mass as she had been wed 
to her boy-cousin, but with preaching as she 
wed the Bishop's cousin. And "at this mar- 
riage there was neither pleasure nor pastime 
used as use was wont to be used when princes 
were married." So says the Diurnal Occur- 
ents of Scotland. A marriage that endured a 
brief, perhaps happy, tragedy-gathering month. 

And the Queen beautiful was destroyed, by 
the Reformation, like an Abbey. 

The bones of Darnley were ravaged by the 




JAMES IV. 



The Empress of the North 115 

citizens of Edinburgh out of the ruins of this 
chapel. Or were they carried to Westminster 
by that unroyal son who was so laggard in car- 
ing for the remains of his queenly mother? I 
hope that Darnley does not rest beside her. 
For I think those exquisite marble fingers of 
the effigy in Henry VII 's chapel, looking I fain 
believe as those of Mary looked, tapering, 
lovely, sinister, would not so fold themselves in 
prayer without unfolding through the long cen- 
turies. 

In the old palace the most glorious days were 
those when James IV was king. As the most 
glorious days of Scotland were those which are 
almost legendary. The palace still had the 
grandeur that was Norman and the grace that 
was early English under David. Its front, 
towered and pinnacled, suggesting more for- 
tress security than this dull chateau, opened 
upon a great outer court that lay between the 
palace and the walls. Coming down the Canon- 
gate from the castle it must have looked very 
splendid to James. And yet he did not care to 
remain in it long. All the Stewarts had errant 
souls, and they loved to wander their kingdom 
through. It presented ample opportunity for 
adventure; scarce a Stewart ever left Scot- 
land. That last Prince, who flashed across Scot- 



116 The Spell of Scotland 

land in one last Stewart sword thrust — ''My 
friends," he said in Holyrood the night before 
Prestonpans, ''I have thrown away the scab- 
bard" — was but treading in the steps of his 
royal forebears, the royal fore-errants. 

In the days of James IV — we say it as one 
should say in the days of Haroun al Easchid, 
and indeed Edinburgh was in those early years 
of the Fifteen Hundreds the Bagdad of the 
world, and her days as well as her nights were 
truly Arabian — the world must have looked 
much as it does on the pleasant morning when 
we make our royal entry into Holyrood. 

The Abbey grounds, a regal area then, and 
still a regality, were rich with woodland and 
orchard, and terraced and flowered into south- 
ern beauty. The red crags of the Salisbury 
ridge rose bold above as they do to-day, and 
crowning the scene the leonine form of Arthur ^s 
Seat above the green slopes, the lion keeping 
guard against the invading lion of England! 
I think James must often have climbed to that 
height to look forth over his domain, over his 
city, to watch the world, as King Arthur^ — 
whom he did not resemble — did legendary cen- 
turies before. 

It was a busy time in Edinburgh; men^s 
hands and wits were working. In Leith, then 



The Empress of the North 117 

as now the port, then as now a separate burgh, 
there was much shipping and much building of 
ships ; King James dreamed of a navy, and he 
had an admirable admiral in Sir Anthony 
Wood. In the castle there was the forging of 
guns, the ''seven sisters of Brothwick," under 
direction of the king's master gunner, while 
Mons Meg looked on, and perhaps saw the near 
terrible future when these sisters of hers should 
be lost at Flodden. 

In the city there was the splendid beginning 
of that intellectual life which has ever been 
quick in Edinburgh. It was a joyous time ; wit- 
ness the account from the lord High treasurer — 

''On the 11th of February, 1488, we find the 
king bestowing nine pounds on gentil John, the 
English fule; on the 10th of June we have an 
item to English pipers who played to the king 
at the castle gate, of eight pounds eight shil- 
lings; on the thirty-first of August Patrick 
Johnson and his fellows, that playit a play to 
the king, in Lithgow, receives three pounds; 
Jacob the lutar, the king of bene. Swanky that 
brought balls to the king, twa wemen that sang 
to his highness, Witherspoon the foular, that 
told tales and brought fowls, Tom Pringill the 
trumpeter, twa fithelaris that sang Grey Steill 
to the king, the broken-bakkit fiddler of St. 



118 The Spell of Scotland 

Andrew's, Quhissilgyllourie a female dancer, 
Willie Mercer who lap in the stank by the king 's 
command. ' ' 

Oh, a royal and democratic and merry time. 
It was Flodden that made men old, that tragic 
climax to this splendour. 

"In the joyous moneth tyme of June," in the 
pleasant garden of the town-house of the great 
Earl of Angus, looking down on the still waters 
of the Nor' Loch, and across the woods and 
moors to the glittering blue Firth, there sat the 
pale stripling, Gavin Douglass, third son of 
Douglass, Archibald Bell-the-Cat, late in orders 
at Mony musk, but now come up to St. Giles 
as prior in spite of his youth, and more ab- 
sorbed in poetry than men. 

"More pleased that in a barbarous age 
He gave rude Scotland Virgil's page, 
Tban that beneath his rule he held 
The bishopric of fair Dunkeld." 

Here I would dispute Scott. After all. Dark 
Ages are not always as dark as they look to 
those who come after. And if the "Dark 
Ages" of Europe were brilliantly luminous in 
Moslem capitals, Bagdad and Cordova, so 
"rude Scotland" was more polished under 
James IV than England under Henry VII, or 
France under Louis XII. 



The Empress of the North 119 

As Gavin has recorded in "The Palice of 
Honour," he had interview with Venus in her 
proper limbo, and she had presented him with 
a copy of Virgil, bidding him translate it. 
And so, quite boldly, before any Englishman 
had ventured, and all through the winter, for- 
getful — except when he wrote his prefaces of 

scharp soppis of sleit and of the snypand snaw 

he had worked over his translation, from the 
Latin into the Scottish, and now it was nearly 
ready "to go to the printer," or more like, to be 
shown to the king. In sixteen months he had 
completed thirteen books; for he had added a 
book of Maphseus Vegius, without discrimination. 
He was certain of the passage facilis descen- 
sus Averni, for Gavin was Scotch, the time was 
Stewart. It ran in this wise — 

"It is richt faeill and eithgate, I tell thee 
For to descend, and pass on down to hell, 
The black zettis of Pluto, and that dirk way 
Stand evir open and patent nicht and day. 
But therefore to return again on hicht 
And heire above reeovir this airis licht 
That is difficul werk, thair labour lyis, 
Full few thair bene quhom hiech above the skyis, 
Thare ardent vertue has raisit and upheit 
Or zit quhame equale Jupiter deifyit, 
Thay quhilkie bene gendrit of goddes may thy oder attane 
All the mydway is wilderness unplane 



120 The Spell of Scotland 

Or wilsum forest; and the laithlie flude 
Coeytus, with his drery bosom unrude 
Flows environ round about that place." 

But he was not quite certain that he had been 
splendid enough, and daring enough, in his ap- 
plication of the royal lines — 

"Hie Csesar et omnis luli 
Progenies, magnum caeli ventura sub axem." 

So he had sent for his friend, William Dun- 
bar, Kynges Makar, laureate to the sovereign. 
And Dunbar was never loath for a ^'Flyting," 
a scolding. He had them on every hand, with 
every one, and not only those he held with 
''gude maister Walter Kennedy," and pub- 
lished for the amusement of the King and his 
Court. It was a more solemn event when the 
future Bishop of Dunkeld summoned him. 
Though Gavin was fifteen years younger than 
William, he was more serious with much study, 
and under the shadow of future honours, and 
then, too, he was a Douglass. 

So Dunbar came, striding up the Canongate 
between the tall inquisitive houses — even he 
found them ''hampered in a honeycaim of their 
own making" — a very handsome figure, this 
Dunbar, in his red velvet robe richly fringed 
with fur, which he had yearly as his reward 



The Empress of the North 121 

from the King, and which I doubt not he pre- 
ferred to the solemn Franciscan robe he had 
renounced when he entered the King's service. 
James was away at Stirling. James was a 
poet also. Surely, on internal evidence, it is 
the Fourth James and not the Fifth, who wrote 
those charming, and improper poems, '^The 
Gaberlunzieman" and ''The Jolly Beggar. 



>) 



"He took a horn frae his side, and blew baith loud and 

shrill, 
And four and twenty belted knights came skipping o'er the 
hill. 

"And he took out his little knife, loot a' his duddies fa' ; 
And he was the brawest gentleman that was amang them 
a'." 

"And we'll gang nae mair a roving, 
So late into the night; 
And we'll gang nae mair a roving, boys, 
Let the moon shine ne'er so bright." 

Dunbar, official Makar, would fain secure the 
criticism of young Gavin on this joyous lament 
he had writ to the King in absence — 

"We that here in Hevenis glory . . . 
I mean we folk in Paradyis 
In Edinburgh with all merriness." 

And perhaps the young Gavin and the old 
Dunbar in their common fellowship of poetry, 
would drink a glass of red wine in memory of 



122 The Spell of Scotland 

friends passed into death's dateless night — 
Timor Mortis conturhat me. 

"He has Blind Harry and Sandy Traill 
Slaine with his schour of mortall haill. . . . 
In Dunfermelyne he had done rovne 
With Maister Robert Henrisoun." 

And Dunbar, who was so much more human 
than Gavin, if older, would quote those immor- 
tal new lines of Henrys on — . 

"Robene sat on gnde grene hill 
Kepand a flok of fe, 
Mirry Makyne said him till, 
Robene, thow pity on me." 

While Gavin, so much elder than his looks, 
and mindful of Scottish as well as of Trojan 
history, would quote from Blind Harry in the 
name of Wallace — 

"I grant, he said, part Inglismen I slew 
In my quarrel, me thocht nocht halff enew. 
I mowyt na war but for to win our awin (own). 
To God and man the ryeht full weill is kaawin (known)." 

Then Dunbar would wrap his rich red robe 
about him — I hope he wore it on ordinary days, 
or were there any when James the Fourth was 
king? — and stride back, through the Canongate 
to Holyrood, back to the court, where he would 
meet with young David Lindsay, of a different 



The Empress of the North 123 

sort from young Gavin Douglass. And they 
would cliuckle over "Kitteis Confessioun," a 
dialogue between Kitty and the curate, which 
Lindsay had just written — and would not Dun- 
bar be gracious and show it to the King? 

Quod he, "Have ye na wrangous geir?" 
Quod scho, ''I staw ane pek o' beir." 
Quod he, "That suld restorit be, 
Tharefore delyver it to me." 
Quod he, "Leve ye in lecherie f 
Quod scho, "Will Leno mowit me." 
Quod he, "His wyf e that sail I tell. 
To mak hir aequentanee with my-sell." 
Quod he, "Ken ye na heresie?" 
"I wait noeht quhat that is," quod scho. 
Quod he, "Hard he na Inglis bukis?" 
Quod scho, "My maister on thame lukis." 
Quod he, "The bischop that sail knaw. 
For I am swome that for to schaw." 
Quod he, "What said he of the King?" 
Quod scho, "Of gude he spak naething." 
Quod he, "His Grace of that sail wit. 
And he sail lose his lyfe for it." 

Perhaps Warbeck was listening, Perkin War- 
beck who pretended to be Duke of York, pre- 
tended to the English crown. So Scotland har- 
boured him, and Holyrood was hospitable to 
him. James married him to Lady Jane Gor- 
don, and for years, until he wearied of it, main- 
tained a protectorate over this pinchbeck Pre- 
tender. 



124 The Spell of Scotland 

I am certain that Dom Pedro de Ayala did 
not linger in the court to gossip with Dunbar, 
or with the hangers-on. Dom Pedro had come 
up from Spain on a strange ambassadorial er- 
rand, to offer to James in marriage a Spanish 
princess, knowing well that there might be no 
Spanish princess (Maria was betrothed to 
Portugal) ; but no doubt believing that there 
ought to be, since James was slow in marrying, 
and surely a Spanish princess would best mate 
this royalest of the Stewarts. Dom Pedro bet- 
ter liked the extravagant kingly court at Holy- 
rood than the niggardly court at Windsor. He 
wrote home to Ferdinand and Isabella, ''The 
kingdom is very old, and very noble, and the 
king possessed of great virtues, and no defects 
worth mentioning," No defects! Certainly 
not. James had the qualities of his defects, 
and these were royal. James could speak— not 
keep still— in eight languages, and could and 
did say ''all his prayers." So Dom Pedro re- 
ports to his Most Catholic Majesty. 

When he was thirty years old, this King Er- 
rant married, not the hypothetical daughter of 
Spain, but the substantial youthful Margaret 
Tudor, aged fourteen. The Scottish king would 
none of the alliance for years; James preferred 
hypothetical brides and errant affairs. But the 




MARGARET TUDOR, QUEEN OF JAMES IV. 



The Empress of the North 125 

English king saw the advantage and pressed it. 
He had united the roses, red and white, of Eng- 
land; he would fain join the thistle to the 
rose. 

So James, in August, 1503, journeyed out to 
Dalkeith, whither Margaret had come. He re- 
turned to ''hys bed at Edinborg varey well 
countent of so fayr a meetyng." A few days 
later, Margaret made her entry into Edinburgh, 
James having met her, gallantly dressed in "a 
jacket of crimson velvet bordered with cloth of 
gold. ' ' Leaving his restive charger, ' ' mounting 
on the pallefroy of the Qwene, and the said 
Qwene behind hym, so rode throw the towne 
of Edinburgh." Their route lay through the 
Grassmarket up to the Castle Hill, and down 
the High Street and the Canongate, to the Ab- 
bey. Here they were received by the Arch- 
bishop of St. Andrews. Next day they were 
married by the Archbishop of Glasgow, the 
Archbishop of York joining in the solemn and 
magnificent celebration. 

It is the most splendid moment in Edinburgh 
history, within the Abbey and the palace, and 
within the city. The Town Cross ran with 
wine, the high lands were hung with banners 
and scarlet cloth, and morality plays were per- 
formed before the people. In the palace there 



126 The Spell of Scotland 

was a royal scene. And our friend, William 
Dunbar, Kynges Makar, read his allegory of 
''The Thrissl and the Roiss," which is still 
worth reading, if Chaucer is worth reading. 

But, at night, in the royal apartment, the 
night before the wedding, perhaps in the frag- 
ment of the old palace which remains, the gallant 
king played to the little princess upon the vir- 
ginal; and then, on bended knee and with un- 
bonneted head, he listened while she played and 
sang to him. Out of the dark of the time it is 
a shining scene; and out of the splendour of 
the moment it brings a note of tenderness. 

Another decade, another August, and the 
Boroughmoor (where now run the links of 
Burntland) was covered with the white of a 
thousand tents, Scotland was gathered for war, 
the "ruddy lion ramped in gold" floated war- 
like over all, and James and all Scotland pre- 
pared to march down to Flodden, heeding not 
the warning which had sounded at midnight in 
ghostly voice at the Town Cross ; a warning no 
doubt arranged by Margaret, never a Stewart, 
always a Tudor. And — all Scotland was turned 
into a house of mourning. 

Half a century later the history of Scotland 
came to a climax, and Mary Stewart came to 
Holyrood; that queen who then and ever since 



The Empress of the North 127 



held half the world in thrall, like another Iseult. 
The covenanted world has rejected her, as no 
doubt it would reject Iseult. 

Shrouded in a gray ^'haar" from off the 
North Sea, rising like a Venus out of the mists 
of the sea, Mary Stewart, Dowager of France, 
Queen of Scotland, Heiress of England, came 
unto her own. And, her own received her, and, 
received her not. 

The castle hanging high in air no longer hung 
there. The palace lying low on the plain was 
not there, on that August 19, 1561. There was 
nothing but what was near at hand; Mary could 
not see a hundred feet into her kingdom. In 
truth she arrived at port a week before the ship 
was expected— and Mary also flashed through 
her kingdom; witness the ride across the 
Marches to the Hermitage, and the ride 
through the North to punish Huntley. Hers 
was a restless soul, a restless body. 

On her return to the kingdom she was accom- 
panied by a great retinue, three of her French 
uncles of Guise and of Lorraine, her four 
Maries, and many ambassadors. It was a sus- 
pended moment in the world, the sixth decade 
of the sixteenth century. And nowhere were 
affairs in such delicate balance, or so like to 
swing out of balance as in Scotland; where re- 



128 The Spell of Scotland 

ligion, sovereignty, feudalism, morality, were 
swaying dizzily. So all the world sent their 
keenest ambassadors to observe, to foresee if 
possible, to report. 

Yet Mary rode through the mists. 

*'Si grand brouillard," says the Sieur de 
Brantome, that gossipy chronicler, and Mary 
and her French courtiers and Scotch Maries, 
rode through the "haar," from Leith up what- 
ever was the Leith Walk of that day to Holy- 
rood. 

The palace must have rung with French chat- 
ter, of these wondering and inquisitive and crit- 
ical folk ; for all the cultured world was French 
in those days, and Mary and her Maries had 
been only five or six when they left stormy 
Scotland for the pleasant smiling land of 
France. 

Not for long was she permitted to believe she 
had brought France back with her and there 
was no reality in Scotland but as she made it. 
Eeformation pressed in upon her, even through 
the windows of this turret where again she 
seems to listen to that prophetic and pious 
serenade, Scottish protestant psalms accom- 
panied by fiddles and sung to a French Catho- 
lic queen. "Vile fiddles and rebecks,'* com- 
plains Brantome, hesitating to call vile the mob 



The Empress of the North 129 

of five hundred gathered in the Scotch mists; 
but they sang ''so ill and with such bad accord 
that there could be nothing worse. Ah, what 
music, and what a lullaby for the night ! ' ' 

The rooms of Mary are still inclosed, the 
walls still stand about them, and a romantic 
care withholds the ravages of time from those 
tapestries and silken bed hangings, dark crim- 
son damask, which Mary drew about her on that 
night of her return. And here hangs a picture 
of Queen Elizabeth, authentic, Tudoresque, 
which did not hang here when Mary returned; 
but what dark shadow of Elizabeth lurked be- 
hind these hangings ! The very guard to whom 
yon protest the picture understands — ''I think 
it an insult to her memory." 

It is here that Queen Mary still reigns. All 
the old palace was burned, carelessly, by Crom- 
well's soldiers, at what time men were caring 
nothing for palaces, and less for royalty. But, 
fate was royal, was Jacobite, and this gray 
turret of the northwest corner a building of 
James V on a foundation of James IV — per- 
haps where he had listened in the evening to 
Margaret and her virginal — ^was saved from the 
wrath of the Commonwealth. Within these 
very walls Mary played on the virginal, per- 
haps on the rebeck, and many sought to know 



130 The SpeU of Scotland 

I 

her stops — ''you can fret me, yet you cannot 
play upon me." 

Here she was loved, as she still is loved. 
Here she made love, the mystery! — as always. 
Here she flashed those bright eyes on courtiers 
and commoners and straightway these fell into 
bondage — the Stewarts never drew the line of 
division. Here those eyes battled with John 
Knox as he met her in Dialogues, as John has 
faithfully recorded. And here those bright 
eyes filled with a storm of tears at his denun- 
ciation; but Knox felt their power. Here she 
met Darnley, in the chapel married him, and 
Knox called after dinner to declare that the 
Eeformation did not approve. Here by the 
very stairs of the turret Darnley led the mur- 
derers on Eizzio, from his private apartments 
to hers. (I find it fit that Ker of Fawdonside, 
one of the murderers, should have married later 
the widow of Knox.) Mary was held here a 
prisoner; they would ''cut her into coUops and 
cast her over the wall" if she summoned help. 
But Mary could order that the blood stains of 
the fifty-six wounds of Eizzio should remain 
"ane memoriall to quychen her revenge." 
They quicken our thought of Mary to-day — if 
we accept them. From Holyrood Mary went 
to Kirk o' Field on a Sunday night in Febru- 



_. _„,.™,;^.^^ 





The Empress of the North 131 

ary, to visit Darnley who lay ''full of the small 
pox." He had come back from Bothwell castle 
on Mary's urging; but he had gone to Bothwell 
to escape her revenge for Eizzio. She re- 
turned to Holyrood — ''the Queen's grace gang 
and with licht torches up the Black Friar's 
Wynd" — ^where the wedding festivities of a 
member of her household were in progress. 
And, I doubt not, devoted to Mary as I am, that 
she was the merriest of the company. 

Then the dark. 

Then, at two in morning, an explosion that 
shook all Edinburgh, that astonished the world, 
that still reverberates through the world. 

Then — the dark. 

A marriage, at two in the morning, a flight 
to Borthwick, a meeting at Carberry, one more 
night in Edinburgh, in a house as mean as that 
of Kirk o' Field, a day at Holyrood, and a 
forced ride with ruffian nobles, Lindsay and 
Euthven on each hand, to Loch Leven, thirty 
miles in the night of June 16, 1567 — and Edin- 
burgh and Holyrood and the Crown of Scotland 
know her no more. 

"Helen's lips are drifting dust,. 
Ilion is consumed in rust." 

And Mary. And Holyrood. 

There is one more Holyrood scene descend- 



132 The Spell of Scotland 

ing from this. On a Saturday evening, March 
26, 1603, the son of Mary, the King of Scotland, 
supped with the Queen, perhaps in that small 
supper room where Rizzio was supping with a 
queen; and they had retired. ''The palace 
lights were going out, one by one." And Sir 
Robert Carey, three days out from London, 
clattered into the courtyard, the King was 
roused. Sir Robert knelt before him — 

"Queen Elizabeth is dead, and Your Majesty 
is King of England ! ' ' 

James I of England, James VI of Scotland, 
son of Mary, son of Darnley, son of the ninth 
generation from Bruce, The Bruce. The ' ' auld 
enemy" is finally defeated; and to borrow again 
from Rosaline Masson, "the lights of Holyrood 
went out, one by one." 

In the long picture gallery of this dull mod- 
ern palace, nothing of which either Mary or 
James ever saw, there hangs a series of por- 
traits, one hundred pictures of Scottish kings, 
painted under order of Charles II in 1680, by 
the Fleming, DeWitt, who agreed to furnish the 
pictures in two years for one hundred and 
twenty pounds. They begin with Fergus I, 
330 B. 0. They are the kings who passed before 
the prophetic vision of Banquo. Enough to 
frighten Macbeth! 



The Empress of the North 133 

One brief brilliant ghost of Stewart glory re- 
turns. In this gallery was held the ball of 
Prince Charles Edward, described in "Waver- 
ley." 

And after this theatric moment, and after the 
Prince had defeated the ''royalists" at Fal- 
kirk, Hardy's dragoons slashed these pictures 
of Scottish kings, since the Prince they could 
not reach. 



Princes Gardens 

There are certain public places of beauty 
where the beauty is so enveloping that the place 
seems one's very own, seems possessed. That, 
I take it, is the great democratic triumph, in 
that it has made beauty a common possession 
and places of beauty as free to the people as is 
the air. 

Chief of these is Princes Street Gardens. 

I could, in truth I have, spent there days and 
half-days, and twilights that I would willingly 
have lengthened to midnights, since the north- 
ern night never quite descends, but a romantic 
gray twilight veils everything, and evokes more 
than everything. For any lengthened visit in 
Edinburgh I dare not inhabit a hotel room on 



134 The Spell of Scotland 

the Garden side, since all my time would be 
spent at the window. For a shorter visit, such 
a room lengthens the day, defies the closed gate 
of the Gardens. 

It was from such a window as this, ''From a 
Window in Princes Street" that Henley looked 
forth — 

"Above the crags that fade and gloom 
Starts the bare knee of Arthur's Seat ; 
Ridged high against the evening bloom 
The Old Town rises, street on street; 
With lamps bejeweled, straight ahead, 
Like rampird walls the houses lean, 
All spired and domed and turreted. 
Sheer to the valley's darkling green ; 
Ranged in mysterious array. 
The Castle menacing and austere, 
Looms through the lingering last of day; 
And in the silver dusk you hear. 
Reverberated from crag and scar. 
Bold bugles blowing points of war." 

Princes Street is, I believe, not a mile long, 
a half-mile the part which is gardened. It is 
the loveliest street in the world. It seems in- 
finite instead of half-mile. 

Of course to the loyal American that praise 
is received half-way. For he remembers Eiver- 
side Drive with the majesty of the Hudson, 
North Shore Drive with the shoreless infinity 
of Lake Michigan, Summit Avenue with the 



The Empress of the North 135 



deep g'orge of the Upper Mississippi, Quebec 
and its Esplanade. But even these '' handsome 
streets" cannot match Princes for history and 
beauty in one, for the old and the new, for the 
Old Town and the New Town. 

Princes Street, to speak briefly of its geogra- 
phy, is a broad thoroughfare, with a medley 
of buildings on the north side, but uniform in 
gray stone, where hotels and shops furnish the 
immediate life of the city. There are electric 
cars running the full length of the street; and 
it is the only street I know which is not spoiled 
through the presence of these necessary car- 
riers. 

There are cabs, and there are sight-seeing 
cars, from which in high advantage, and in half 
a day, you can see everything in Edinburgh. 
Yes, actually. I who speak to you have done 
it, partly for the greed of seeing it steadily and 
seeing it whole, and partly for the comment of 
these Scotch coach drivers and guards, who are 
not merely Scottish but the essence of Scotland. 
I shall never forget how an American traveler— 
of course they are all Americans in these tally- 
hos— commenting on the driver's remark that 
the "Old Queen" wanted to build a palace where 
Donaldson's Hospital now stands and she was 
refused—^ ' but she was the Queen ! ' ' Neverthe- 



136 The Spell of Scotland 

less, asserted Mr. Sandy Coaclinian, "She was 
refused." Not so in the old days of Queen- 
ship. 

The entire life of Edinburgh, of Scotland, 
streams through this broad straight street. 

On the opposite side lie the Gardens, stretch- 
ing their way parallel with the street, a wide, 
green-lawned, tree-forested purlieu, terraced 
and flowered, with a "sunken garden" near the 
Castle-side, through which trains are conveyed. 
The smoke, so much lamented, does often rest 
with grace and gray loveliness in the hollows 
of the place, so that one does not miss the waters 
of the Nor' Loch that once flowed here as moat. 

Above rises the castle in greater majesty 
than from any other point. Down from the 
castle runs the ridge of the High Street, and 
the high lands with flags of washing hanging 
out the windows which answer the flags red and 
leoninely rampant, on the buildings of Princes 
Street. The crown of St. Giles and the spire 
of the Tronkirk hanging above all. 

To the west is St. John's, where in the grave- 
yard Eaeburn is buried; and old St. Cuthbert's, 
where in the graveyard De Quincey is buried. 
There are Eaeburns in the Eoyal gallery which 
stands on the island dividing the Gardens, and 
there are many Eaeburns here and there, in 



The Empress of the North 137 

private rooms of banks and other institutions, 
rare Eaeburns with that casual, direct, human 
look he could give men and women. The gal- 
leries are worth a visit both for their best, and 
for their not-best. There are statues of famous 
Scotsmen on the terraces, and of course the 
Scott monument, beautifully Gothic, and as 
sacred as a shrine. 

There are goods to be bought in the shops, 
pebbles and cairngorms in jewelry and kick- 
shaws of that ilk ; rugs and plaidies, sashes and 
ties, and Scott and Stevenson books bound in 
the Eoyal Stewart silk. Unhappy the traveler 
who has not provided himself beforehand with 
a tartan. Almost every one can if he will. And 
there is always the college of heraldry to help 
one out. Or the audacity of choosing the tar- 
tan you like best; an affront, I assure you, to 
all good Scots. For however unlovely a Scotch 
tartan may be in the eyes of the world — nomina- 
tions are invidious — in the eyes of the clans- 
man there is nothing so "right" as his own 
particular tartan. He would not exchange it 
for a Douglass or a Stewart. 

These tartans have exerted a very marked 
effect on the Scottish sense of taste. On 
Princes Street you may not find such richly 
dressed women as on Regent Street, but the 



138 The SpeU of Scotland 

harmony of colouring will please you better. 
While no doubt this is du.e to the fact that for 
several hundred years the Scottish taste has 
had the benefit of intimate association with the 
French, it can also be traced to the longer cen- 
turies during which tartans have brought an 
understanding of colour harmonies. Because 
there has been this love of colour, there has 
come with it vanity. With vanity there has 
come that rare ability of the women of the race 
to maintain a unity, a harmony, a complete re- 
lationship between skirts and waists. There is 
no country in Europe where the ''act of union" 
at the feminine waistline is so triumphant as 
in Scotland, particularly in Edinburgh. The 
universal American achievement has been 
equaled in Europe only in Scotland. 

There are teashops which invite you in, when 
the wind sweeps too harshly, or the rain beats 
itself into more than a Scotch mist, or even 
when the sun shines too hot. There is a gar- 
den tea place on top of a high hotel which con- 
fronts the Castle. Even in this Far North 
there is much open air dining, and more espe- 
cially open air tea-ing. I am not certain that 
Dr. Johnson would have much cared for this 
modern tea room, where he might review the 
world. It seems that he drank much tea when 



The Empress of the North 139 

he was the guest of Boswell, especially when he 
was the guest of Mrs. Boswell, in James Court 
the other side the Gardens. ''Boswell has 
handsome and very spacious rooms, level with 
the ground on one side of the house, and the 
other four stories high." And Boswell says 
of Johnson, "My wife had tea ready for him, 
which it is well known he delights to drink at 
all times, particularly when sitting up late. ' ' 
From this roof tea garden one can see James's 
Court at the top of the Mound, although the 
Boswell lodgings are burned down. And one 
can almost see Holyrood, where tea was intro- 
duced by James VII. 

After you have shopped and had your tea, 
and the past retakes possession, you will return 
to the green valley of the Gardens, to forget the 
clang of the tram cars, to look up at the great 
Castle Hill, green until it meets the buff-col- 
oured stone and the buff-coloured buildings that 
seem to grow out of the stone, if it is a clear 
day; while the ramparts seem temporarily to 
have blossomed with red geraniums, if red coats 
are leaning over the edge. 

A clear day in Edinburgh is possible. I have 
spent a month of such days, and have longed 
for the mists, a touch of them, that the castle 
might turn to a purple wonder, and the deep 



140 The Spell of Scotland 

blue shadows sink over it, and the gray precipice 
of the High Street look higher than ever. Gray 
is in truth the colour of Edinburgh, "the gray 
metropolis of the North." But it is never a 
dreary gray, never a heavy gray like London. 
There the gray is thick, charged with soot; 
one can rub it from his face. In Edinburgh 
the gray is luminous, a shifting playing colour, 
with deep shadows turning to deep blue, with 
rifts or thinnings of the cloud, through which 
yellow and brown glimmers make their way. 

Above all, Edinburgh is never monotonous. 
That is perhaps its charm, a something that 
every feminine city knows ; Edinburgh is femi- 
nine, and Paris, and Venice, and New Orleans. 

And there hangs the castle, sometimes in 
midair — 

''Hast thou seen that lordly castle, that castle by the sea? 
Golden and red above it the clouds float gorgeously." 

Sometimes standing stalwart and stern, a 
challenge to daring, a challenge to history. 
That farther edge of the Castle Hill as it is 
silhouetted against the west sky — if you walk 
around on Lothian Street you can see the full 
face of the Eock — has invited many an adven- 
turer, both from within and without. 

It was down that steep hill that the sons of 



The Empress of the North 141 

Margaret carried their queen mother, when 
the hosts of Donalbane were besieging the place, 
and a Scotch ^'haar" rolling in from the sea 
and shutting off the castle enabled the little 
procession to pass safely with its precious bur- 
den, and swiftly down to the Queen's ferry, and 
across to Dunfermline. 

Up the face of that Rock when The Bruce did 
not hold this stronghold there stole in the night 
of a thirteenth century winter — it must have 
been much colder, even in Edinburgh, in the 
thirteenth century — a picked band of men; 
picked by Randolph afterward Earl of Moray, 
and led by Frank, who, years before when he 
had been a soldier in the castle garrison and 
night leave was forbidden, used to make his 
way down this cliff to visit a bonnie lassie in 
the West Bow. Now, on a wind-swept night, 
which can be very windy around that castle 
profile — the wind has not abated since the thir- 
teenth century — Frank led the remembered 
way. I wonder if he remembered the lassie. 
But his footing was sure. Once, it is true, the 
sentinel seemed to have discovered them. But 
it was only the boast the sentinel makes to the 
night when he makes his last round. The men 
huddled against the face of the Rock. Then 
they moved onward. The ladders were too 



142 The Spell of Scotland 

short to reach the rampart. Two were bound 
together. The men over, the cry "A Moray!" 
rings in the castle. Scotland has won it again. 

Another century, and James III is king. 
This least royal of the Stewarts, jealous of his 
more royal brother, locked the Duke of Albany 
in the castle, and felt secure. But the Duke 
had friends. A French clipper came into Leith. 
It brought wine to Albany, and the wine cask 
contained a rope. Inviting his guardians to 
sup with him, he plied them with heated wine, 
perhaps drugged wine, then, the dagger. Al- 
bany 's servant insisted on going down the rope 
first. It was short, he fell the rest of the dis- 
tance. Albany hurried back for the sheets from 
his bed, made his safe way down. He carried 
the servant man all the way to Leith — he had 
just ''whingered" the guard — found the boat, 
and safety, and France. 

Up the Eock, in Covenanting days, stole 
Claverhouse, the Bonnie Dundee, to a secret 
conference with the Duke of Gordon, hoping 
to win him away to Stewart loyalty and the 
North. 

I cannot remember that any of Scott's char- 
acters went this way. He thought it '^ scant 
footing for a cat." But Stevenson knew the 
way. Perhaps not actually, but he sent more 




JOHN GRAHAM OF CLAVERHOUSE, VISCOUNT DUNDEE. 



The Empress of the North 143 

than one of Ms characters up or down the Eock 
— St. Ives with a rope that was long enough to 
reach. 

Calton Hill 

Perhaps the best view of Edinburgh — only 
perhaps, for each view differs, and you have 
not seen the whole city unless you have seen it 
from the various vantage points — is that from 
the Calton Hill. For a very good reason. The 
Hill itself is negligible enough, although it is 
impossible to understand Edinburgh, to under- 
stand Scotland, unless you have looked on the 
architectural remnants on this Hill, and con- 
sidered them philosophically. But, as Steven- 
son said — ' ' Of all places for a view, the Calton 
Hill is perhaps the best; since you can see the 
castle, which you lose from the castle, and Ar- 
thur's Seat, which you cannot see from Ar- 
thur's Seat." An excellent reason, which also 
places the castle and Arthur's Seat. 

Calton Hill does not tower so high over the 
city as these other two points; one may still 
look up to Arthur's Seat, one may look across 
to the castle. Yet, the city lies near. Yet, the 
country rolls out to the Firth, and out to the 
Pentlands. Perhaps a gray-sea haze dulls the 



144 The SpeU of Scotland 

far edge of the far Kingdom of Fife. Perhaps 
a blue haze hangs over the Pentlands. Per- 
haps a smoke-cloud makes a nearer sky for the 
town itself, this Auld Eeekie. Not only per- 
haps, but very probably. There are clear days 
in Edinburgh. They are to be treasured. 
There is no air more stimulating in all the 
world. October sometimes slips into the other 
months of the year, fills the air with wine, clears 
the air of filament. But, not often, not often 
for the tourist from beyond seas who makes 
Edinburgh in the summer. But still it is pos- 
sible from Calton Hill to catch the farthest 
glory of the encircling hills, and the near glory 
of the ever glorious city. 

The Hill itself is a place of monuments, and 
a very pretentious place. Also, very absurd. 
I suppose it is possible to be of two minds about 
the remnant of the Parthenon which stands so 
conspicuously on the highest plateau, a con- 
struction dating back to that royal time when 
George the Fourth came to this northern cap- 
ital, and was — alas! — received as though he 
were Bonnie Prince Charlie himself; and was 
received — again alas ! — by Sir Walter clad in a 
Campbell plaid, and as loyal to the Eegent, 
the florid Florizel, as he had been to Prince 
Charles in the ' ' Waverleys. " Because of all 



The Empress of the North 145 

these loyalties this never finished monnment, 
with its twelve colunms and architrave spread 
above, looks sufficiently pathetic, and sufficiently 
absurd. " ' A very suitable monument to certain 
national characteristics," said a later Scots 
writer, who perhaps never ceased being a 
Jacobite. 

There are monuments; one to Dugald Stew- 
art, and the visitor not philosophical is apt to 
ask. Who was Dugald Stewart*? There is a 
memorial to Burns whose friend Willie that 
brewed a peck o' malt lies in the Old Calton 
burying ground near by. Hume lies there, 
too, and Dr. John Brown, and Stevenson's 
dead. 

"There on the sunny frontage of a hill, 
Hard by the House of Kings, repose the dead, 
My dead, the ready and the strong of word. 
Their works, the salt-encrusted, still survive; 
The sea bombards their founded towers; the night 
Thrills pierced with their strong lamps. The artificers 
One after one, here in this grated cell, 
Where the rain erases and the dust consumes. 
Fell upon lasting silence." 

There is a monument to Lord Nelson. And 
looking as though he belonged there is a bronze 
figure of Abraham Lincoln. 

All this lies about, with casual sheep crop- 
ping the grass. 



146 The Spell of Scotland 

But, there lies the city. And there lies the 
country. 

To the south rises Arthur's Seat, the lion. 
The much castellated jail, is beneath you, an- 
other absurd elaborate building, a castle after 
castle-days. Farther a-city lies Holyrood, with 
the ruined abbey, the Queen Mary wing, and 
the scarlet patch of the sentinel moving to and 
fro and guarding all this vanished greatness. 
Nothing more appeals than this sentinel-watch 
of the ghosts of the past. 

Turn but a little and the Old Town lies before 
you, the castle splendid, still the guardian, the 
long ridge of the High Street with its jagged 
buildings that from here rise almost to the 
purple edge of the hilly Pentland background, 
with the spire of the Tolbooth and the crown of 
St. Giles breaking against the sky. And down 
at the foot of the vantage Hill stretches Princes 
Street with the Scott monument rising athwart 
the haze of city and sky. 

From the north edge of Calton there is a more 
empty panorama, but still significant. Now it 
is bound in with tenements high and thick, but in 
the golden days it was a steep hillside leading 
down to a jousting ground. Tradition has it 
that Bothwell launched his horse down its al- 
most-precipice, and so entered the tilting 



The Empress of the North 147 

ground, while ladies' bright eyes rained influ- 
ence and gave the prize ; but most glowing were 
the eyes of Mary. 

Beyond, the suburbs fill in the two miles that 
stretch to Leith, and to the Firth, glittering 
out to the far sea. 

At night, if you have no fear of hobgoblins 
or of hooligans, Calton Hill is an experience. 
It is a still place, the silence the greater because 
the city lies so near, and looks so busy with its 
twinkling lights. A gulf of gloom lies between. 
The night is velvet black, a drop curtain against 
which is thrown the star-pricked map of the 
city. One can well believe how the young 
Stevenson, in those romantic days when he 
carried a lantern under his jacket, used to 
climb this hill venturesomely, and with the dog 
in " Chanticler, " exclaim, ''I shall never for- 
get the first night I lapped up the stars." It 
is something to lap stars from the black pool 
which is Edinburgh by night. 

If you have, happily, lived in a high city, 
Boston, Seattle, Duluth, Denver, St. Paul, San 
Francisco, with water and land combined, you, 
too, have lingered upon a heaven-kissed hill on 
such a night as this, and Edinburgh seems na- 
tive. 

Scott, of course, must have known Calton 



148 The SpeU of Scotland 

Hill, although Salisbury Crags under Arthur's 
Seat, with its more feasible promenade, better 
appealed to him when he was writing the 
* * Waverleys, " There is an American who has 
written of the Hill, a young inland American 
whom the gods loved to an early death. I re- 
member hearing Arthur Upson talk of days and 
nights on the Calton, and his sonnet catches 
the note — 

"High and alone I stood on Calton Hill 

Above the scene that was so dear to him 
Whose exile dreams of it made exile dim. 
October wooed the folded valleys till 
In mist they blurred, even as our eye upfiU 

Under a too-sweet memory; spires did swim, 
And gables, rust-red, on the gray sea's brim — 
But on these heights the air was soft and still, 
Yet, not all still; an alien breeze will turn 

Here, as from bournes in aromatic seas, 
As round old shrines a new-freed soul might yearn 

With incense of rich earthly reveries. 
Vanish the isles : Mist, exile, searching pain, 
But the brave soul is freed, is home again," 



CHAPTER V 



THE KINGDOM OP FIFE 




?ROM Edinburgh as I looked out on the 
Forth from every vantage point, I was 
conscious of the hills of Fife ever back- 
ing in the prospect. And I kept repeating to 
myself the old rhyme of the witches — 

"The Thane of Fife had a wife, 
Ah, where is she now!" 

I determined to set sail and find not the wife, 
but the kingdom. 

It is a continuing splendour, this name — the 
Kingdom of Fife. Than the thing nothing 
could be less royal, more democratic. For 
Fife shire is given over to farm lands and coal 
fields and treeless stretches, and the fringe of 
Fife is made up of fishing villages ''a hodden 
gray plaid wi' a gowden fringe," said a King 
Jamie. It lies there, separate from Scotland, 
although very Scottish, between the firths of the 
Forth and the Tay, with the Ochil hills a barrier 
on the landside. The separating firths are now 

149 



150 The Spell of Scotland 

connected with Scotland by great bridges, over 
which the trains pass with reluctances And 
the wind is always blowing in Fife, a cold, stern, 
relentless, Calvinistic wind, off the North Sea. 
Not by every wind of doctrine but by a disciplin- 
ing Calvinistic wind is this Kingdom swept into 
conformity. 

There is no end of castles and of historic 
memories lying like pebbles upon the seashore 
of the Firth. Pick up any sea shell — I do not 
remember seeing any, so combed have these 
beaches been from the memory of man — and it 
will whisper a tale in your ear. 

But there is for me but one pilgrimage to be 
made in Fifeshire, to Kirkcaldy; to the place, 
not of Eavenscraig Castle, nor because Adam 
Smith and political economy were here born 
twins, nor because Carlyle taught here for two 
years, nor because Edward Irving preached 
here; their dwellings and schools and graves 
can be seen. But because Marjorie Fleming 
was born here, passed to and fro, from Granton 
to Burntisland, in those brief beautiful nine 
years that were granted to her, and to us, and 
lies buried in the old kirkyard of Abbotshall. 

Perhaps you do not know Marjorie. She 
was the friend, the intimate friend of Sir Wal- 
ter Scott. And I can but think how large and 



The Kingdom of Fife 151 

void the world was a century ago, in that 
Charles Lamb was living in London when Mar- 
jorie was living in Kirkcaldy, and was dream- 
ing of his '^ Dream Children," when he might 
have known this most precious child, fit to be 
the friend of Lamb as she was of Sir Walter. 

Other men who have loved her with a tender- 
ness which can belong but to the living child, 
immortally living, are Dr. John Brown who 
wrote the wonder book about her fifty years 
ago, through which most of us have claimed 
Marjorie as our own, and Mark Twain, who 
only a month before he died — and joined her — 
wrote as tenderly and whimsically of her as he 
ever wrote of any child or any maid. Among 
such august company we almost hesitate to en- 
ter, but surely at this distance of time we may 
lay our love beside that of the great men who 
found Pet Marjorie one of the most precious 
human treasures the world has ever held. 

She was but a little girl, and only nine years 
all told, when the last day came to her a hun- 
dred and more years ago, December 19, 1811. 
The first six years she lived in Kirkcaldy, '*my 
native town which though dirty is clene in the 
country," Marjorie wrote this from Edinburgh 
a little patronizingly, and Marjorie was never 
strong on spelling. The next three years she 



152 The SpeU of Scotland 

lived with her aunt in the Scottish capital, where 
she wrote those journals and letters which have 
kept her memory warm to this day. In July 
of 1811 she returned to the town by the North 
Sea, and in December she was gone. 

In the morning of the day on which I made 
my pilgrimage I went up to the Parliament 
buildings in the Old Town, looked them about, 
saw the lawyers pacing to and fro, as Steven- 
son had paced, but not for long — the absurdity 
of it ! — and then down the hill in the shadow of 
three men. 

''One November afternoon in 1810" — (the 
year in which the ' ' Lady of the Lake ' ' was pub- 
lished) "three men, evidently lawyers, might 
have been seen escaping like school boys from 
the Parliament House, and speeding arm in 
arm down Bank Street and the Mound, in the 
teeth of a surly blast of sleet." They were 
Lord Erskine, William Clerk — and the third we 
all know; what service of romance has he not 
performed for us! As the snow blattered in 
his face he muttered, "how it raves and drifts! 
On-ding o' snaw — aye, that's the word, on- 
ding." And so he approached his own door, 
Castle Street, No. 39. There, over the door, 
looking forth on the world, is his face to-day, 
looking up Young Street. 



The Kingdom of Fife 153 

Then, as he grew restless and would awa, I 
followed him through Young Street up to No. 1, 
North Charlotte Street. It is a substantial 
building, still of dignified and fair estate; 
neighbourhoods are not transformed in a Scots 
century as they are in America. But it carries 
no tablet to tell the world that here Marjorie 
lived. It was here that at the age of six she 
wrote her first letter to Isa Keith. It was 
here that Marjorie saw ''regency bonnets" and 
with eyes of envy ; as indeed she envied and de- 
sired with the passionate depths of her nature 
all lovely and strange things. Here she read 
the Newgate calendar, and found it a fascinat- 
ing affair — Marjorie less than nine ! And here 
that Isabel Keith, her adored cousin, would not 
permit the little bookworm to read much of 
lovers or to talk of them. Marjorie says very 
gravely, "a great many authors have expressed 
themselves too sentimentally," but Isa was 
never able quite to cure Marjorie of her inter- 
est in love. 

That evening Sir Walter carried her, through 
the "on-ding o' snaw," in a shepherd's plaid, 
over to Castle Street. I walked through the 
narrow stone-lined thoroughfare on a hot July 
morning — and I could feel the cold and snow of 
that winter a century back, and see the strong, 



I 



154 The Spell of Scotland 

lame, great man, carrying the wee wifie in the 
neuk of his plaid, to the warm firelight of his 
castle. Marjorie and he would romp there the 
evening long. She would hear him say his 
lessons, "Ziccoty, diccoty, dock," or "Wonery, 
twoery, tickery, seven," while Marjorie "grew 
quite bitter in her displeasure at his ill be- 
haviour and stupidness." 

Then they would read ballads together; and 
then ''he would take her on his knee, and make 
her repeat Constance's speeches in King John 
till he swayed to and fro sobbing his fill. 
Fancy the gifted little creature, like one pos- 
sessed, repeating — 

" 'For I am sick, and capable of fears, 

Oppressed with wrongs, and therefore full of fears ; 
A widow, husbandless, subject to fears; 
A woman, naturally bom to fears.' " 

I walked out through what used to be fields, 
and is now much suburban dwelling, toward 
Braehead. — "I am going to-morrow to a de- 
lightful place, Braehead by name, where there 
is ducks, cocks, bubbly jocks, 2 dogs, 2 cats and 
swine which is delightful" — to Eavelston — ''I 
am at Eavelston enjoying nature's fresh air. 
The birds are singing sweetly, the calf doth 
frisk and nature shows her glorious face." 

Eavelston is still a place of delight, with its 



The Kingdom of Fife 155 

great cliffs breaking the surface of the park and 
a deep-lying lake with dark woodlands. I wish 
Marjorie might have known the ballad by Syd- 
ney Dobell; it has the magic quality she would 
have felt. 

"Ravelston, Ravelston, 

The merry path that leads 
Down the golden morning hill, 
And through the silver meads; 

''She sang her song, she kept her kine, 

She sat beneath the thorn, 
When Andrew Keith of Ravelston 
Rode thro' the Monday mom. 

"Year after year, where Andrew came, 
Comes evening down the glade, 
And still there sits a moonshine ghost 
Where sat the sunshine maid. 

"She makes her immemorial moan, 
She keeps her shadowy kine; 
Keith of Ravelston 
The sorrows of thy line!" 

In the late afternoon I took tram for Leith, 
changing of course at Pilrig, because Leith re- 
mains haughtily aloof from Edinburgh and em- 
phasizes it through this break at the boundary. 
''When we came to Leith," says Boswell, "I 
talked perhaps with too boasting an air, how 
pretty the Frith of Forth looked; as indeed, 



156 The Spell of Scotland 

after the prospect from Constantinople, of 
which I have been told, and that from Naples, 
which I have seen, I believe the view of the Frith 
and its environs from the Castle-hill of Edin- 
burgh is the finest prospect in Europe, 'Aye,' 
replied Dr. Johnson, 'that is the state of the 
world. Water is the same everywhere.' " 

And so, down to the pier, stopping on the 
way to look at a New Haven fishwife in her 
picturesque costume, which she has worn ever 
since the Danes came over. Yes, and looking 
for a suitable piece of earth for Queen Magda- 
lene to kiss, "Scottis eard!" Well, if not here, 
there is Scottis eard worthy elsewhere. 

I asked for the ferry to Burnt-is-land. The 
conductor of the tram looked, yes, and laughed. 
Burnt-island, he dared, dared to repeat. And 
so, I took ferry from Granton to — Burnt-island. 

It is a long journey across the Firth. Far 
down the waters rises the bold rock of the 
Bass, around which I had sailed a day before, 
looking for a landing for some one more pon- 
derous than solan geese or kittie wake, and not 
finding it ; although I was told that from Canty 
bay — excellent Scots name — the innkeeper will 
row you o'er, and you may walk where James I 
was waiting for the boat which should carry 
him to safety in France, and getting instead the 



The Kingdom of Fife 157 

boat which carried him to prison in England. 
Still I like to remember that Henry IV declared 
in explanation that he ''could speak very good 
French" himself, if that were what they were 
sending Scottish Jamie o'er the water for; 
Henry who had years of the Hundred Years' 
"War behind him. 

The rock is rent by a cavern running clean 
through. It's quite a terrific place, and seven 
acres of benty grass must have seemed small 
refuge for the Covenanters who were lodged 
here numerously in Killing Time. 

On the mainshore, the Lothian, rises Tan- 
tallon Castle, where Marmion dared to beard 
Angus Bell-the-Cat. It still looks pretty tre- 
mendous, and still stands, like the Coliseum. 
"Ding doon Tantallon? Build a brig to the 
Bass!" runs the proud proverb. 

But we are on our way across the Firth. 
There was a certain magic about it on my day 
of pilgrimage. The north shore lay sparkling 
in the late afternoon sun, blue shimmering land 
against a clear blue sky, the thin rim of the 
continent playing here and there with opales- 
cent colour where man had builded village or 
castle, or where man had not destroyed the 
ancient green. The south shore lay vague and 
gray, and growing darker, against the falling 



158 The Spell of Scotland 

afternoon, while the Lammermuirs stood up in 
paler dusk in the background, and the sun 
blazed behind them. And all about the Firth 
glittered like an inland lake, a Great Lake. I 
thought of how the Eoman galleys and Norse 
fleets had come this way, and looked and de- 
parted. And how kings had brought their 
armies here, and looked, perhaps besieged, and 
departed. And how time and time and time 
again, French fleets had sailed in here to help 
their continuing ally, Scotland. And how kings 
had sailed out from here to France, and how 
Scots knights had sailed out from here for 
France, the Crusades, anywhere that promised 
adventure. And here Saxon Margaret had 
sailed in to be Scotland's queen. And here 
Scottish Mary had sailed in to be Scotland's 
queen, and not to be. Far out in the offing the 
sun shone golden upon the brown sails of a 
single fishing boat, tacking to catch a homing 
wind, a ghost where once had sailed the war 
and merchant fleets of nations. 

At Burntisland I did not pause to visit Eos- 
send Castle where Mary is supposed to have 
had her affair with Chastelard; certainly not. 
Nor at Kinghorn, where Alexander III, within 
a few months after he had married in haunted 
Kelso, and within a few hours perhaps after he 



The Kingdom of Fife 159 

had drunk the blude red wine in Dunfermline, 
came galloping by this way, the horse stumbled, 
the king fell, and 

"Quhen Alysandyr oure King was dede 
That Scotland led in luve and le . . . 
Sueeoure Scotland and remede 
That stands in perplexite." 



Kirhcaldy 

If Kirkcaldy was a '*lang toun" in the olden 
days, it is longer to-day, stretching from Link- 
town to Dysart, and broadening inland to Gal- 
latown, where they make the famous Wemyss 
pottery. To-day Kirkcaldy makes linoleum and 
jute and engineering works, and it is the center 
of a string of fishing villages, a ''metropolitan 
borough system, ' ' hundreds of boats fishing the 
North Sea with KY marked as their home port, 
when their sailor men make home in any of 
these picturesque and smelling villages, St. 
Monan, Pittenweem, Cellardyke, Crail where 
Mary of Lorraine landed. Largo where Sir An- 
drew Wood the admiral lived, and where Alex- 
ander Selkirk lived what time he did not live 
as Crusoe in Juan Fernandez, and Anstru- 
ther — 



160 The Spell of Scotland 

"Wha wad na be in love 
Wi' bonny Maggie Lauder, 
A piper met her gaen to Fife 
And speired what wast they ea'd her. . . . 
I've lived in Fife 
Baith maid and wife 
These ten years and a quarter, 
Gin ye should come to Anster Fair 
Speir ye for Maggie Lauder." 

There is also some castellated splendour, 
Eavenscraig, and Wemyss on the site of the 
castle of MacDuff, then of Fife, this Wemyss 
being the ill-fated place where Mary first met 
Darnley. 

Abbotshall kirkyard is at the right of the rail- 
way station as the train pulls in to Kirkcaldy. 
In his book of Scotch pilgrimages when William 
Winter was on his way to St. Andrews, past 
Kirkcaldy, he wrote '^gazing as I pass at its 
quaint church among the graves." I suppose 
he did not know what grave. 

But first I would find where she had lived. 
Kirkcaldy is close set against the sea. Here 
on winding High Street, I found the house in 
which she had lived, standing much as it did 
no doubt a hundred years ago, except for a new 
coat of tan on the stone. From those upper 
windows Marjorie looked out on the coach go- 



The Kingdom of Fife 161 

ing away toward Edinburgh. The ground floor 
is occupied by a book store, where I could buy 
no book about Marjorie. Under a window you 
enter the archway and find yourself in a little 
green-grassed court, which is all that is left of 
Marjorie 's garden. The house proper fronted 
the garden in that comfortable excluding way 
which British people still prefer for their places 
of habitation. It is still occupied as a dwelling, 
and the nursery still looks as it did in Mar- 
jorie 's day, and the drawing-room, where she 
wrote that letter to Isa Keith — "I now sit 
down on my botom to answer all your kind and 
beloved letters. ' ' The door of the nursery was 
open. I remembered those last days, when ly- 
ing ill, her mother asked Marjorie if there was 
anything she wished. ^'Oh, yes, if you would 
just leave the room door open a wee bit, and 
play ' The Land o ' the Leal, ' and I will lie still 
and think and enjoy myself." 

"I'm wearin' awa', Jean, 
Like snaw wreaths in thaw', Jean, 
I'm wearin' awa', 
To the Land o' the Leal." 

The kirkyard lies on the outskirts of the town. 
It was a beautiful place as the Scotch sun sank 
behind the Fife hills and the Firth. The or- 



162 The Spell of Scotland 

ganist was playing and the music drifted out 
through the narrow lancet windows when I 
found the little white cross marked ''Pet Mar- 
jorie," and the old gray tombstone with its 
simple token, "M. F. 1811." 

For a hundred years then she has been lying 
there. But Marjorie has become one of the im- 
mortal dream children of the world. I laid my 
fresh flowers beside another's which had with- 
ered, and went my ways into the dusk. 



St. Andrews 

Past Kirkcaldy the road leaves the sea and 
runs northward through meadows between 
fields which have the look of centuries-old cul- 
tivation, at peace like the fields and villages of 
the English Midland, to St. Andrews. 

"St. Andrews by the Northem Sea, 

A haunted town it is to me ! 
A little city, worn and gray, 

The gray North Ocean girds it round; 
And o'er the rocks, and up the bay, 
The long sea-rollers surge and sound; 
And still the thin and biting spray 

Drives down the melancholy street, 
And still endure, and still decay, 

Towers that the salt winds vainly beat. 
Ghost-like and shadowy they stand 



The Kingdom of Fife 163 

Dim mirrored in the wet sea-sands. 
"St. Leonard's Chapel, long ago 

We loitered idly where the tall 
Fresh-budded mountain ashes blow 

Within thy desecrated wall; 
The tough roots rent the tombs below, 

And April birds sang clamorous, 
We did not dream, we could not know 

How hardly Fate would deal with us ! 

"0 broken minster, looking forth 
Beyond the bay, above the town, 
winter of the kindly North, 
college of the scarlet gown!" 

Small wonder St. Andrews is the ecclesiasti- 
cal capital of Scotland, and smaller wonder, re- 
membering the Calvinistic wind, that here hap- 
pened the brunt of the fight between the old 
faith and the new. 

It is a clean and seemly town, with much 
historic memory and much present day dignity, 
a small gray town, ''the essence of all the an- 
tiquity of Scotland in good clean condition," 
said Carlyle. Its ancient sights the cathedral 
and the castle; its living sight the university 
and the golf links. 

The town stands on a promontory, three long 
streets converging on the cathedral and castle 
lying in ruins. The cathedral, a hundred years 
in the building, and very splendid in its wealth 



164 The Spell of Scotland 

of detail, its vastness of space like that of York 
or Amiens, was dedicated in the days of The 
Bruce, with the king present to endow it with 
a hundred marks ^'for the mighty victory of the 
Scots at Bannockburn, by St. Andrew's, the 
guardian of the realm." For three hundred 
years its wax tapers lighted the old rites ac- 
cording to which The Bruce worshiped ; he was 
not covenanted. Then the torch of the refor- 
mation was applied to it, the torch of the flam- 
ing tongue of John Knox. 

To-day there are three towers left of the five 
— Dr. Johnson hoped that one which looked un- 
stable on the day of his visit, would "fall on 
some of the posterity of John Knox; and no 
great matter!" There are massive walls. 
There is no roof between us and the sky, which, 
after all, does shelter the true faith, and if one 
misses the chanting of the monks echoing 
through these arches, under this roofless space, 
there is the moan of the sea, sobbing at the foot 
of the crag, the sea which is of no faith and 
never keeps faith. And if one misses the scar- 
let robes of Cardinal Beaton as he swept 
through these aisles in splendid procession with 
all the gorgeous trappings of his retinue, there 
are mosses and wild flowers to give glows of 
colour — one must content himself. Those were 



The Kingdom of Fife 165 

evil days, whatever the faith; there was not 
much division in matters of conduct ; there may 
have been in matters of morals. 

The castle stands stalwart on the rock prom- 
ontory washed by the ocean, and the ocean 
breaks angrily at its base like a creature robbed 
over long of its prey. It is not the castle in 
which the Cardinal lived, but it was built soon 
after, and wrecked so thoroughly, and looks so 
very ancient, that one would fain believe; and 
the guide will tell, unless you prevent him, that 
it was at these windows that the Cardinal sat 
at his ease and witnessed the entertainment of 
the auto da fe of the non-conformist, George 
Wishart, burned alive on March 28, 1542 ; about 
the time Philip the Second was burning here- 
tics in the Old Plaza at Madrid, and a little be- 
fore Queen Mary spouse to Philip, was burn- 
ing them in England. And it was only two 
months later. May 29, when workmen were 
strengthening the castle at the orders of the 
Cardinal against this very thing that happened, 
that the reformers made their way in, killed the 
Cardinal, and hung him ''by the tane arm and 
the tane foot," from the very balcony where 
he had sat to enjoy Wishart 's burning. A very 
barbarous time. As Wishart had lain in the 
Bottle Dungeon months before his burning, so 



166 The SpeU of Scotland 

Beaton lay in the dungeon in salt, seven months 
before his burial. 

John Knox joined the reformers, holding the 
town until it was taken by the French fleet — 
*' defended their castle against Scotland, 
France, and Ireland all three" — surrendering 
to Strozzi, Prior of Capua, a Knight of 
Ehodes ; so was the great world made small in 
those days by errant knights and captains and 
hired mercenaries. The French captain en- 
tered, "and spoiled the castle very rigorously,'' 
lest it should be *'a receptacle for rebels." All 
this in the time of the Eegency of Mary of 
Lorraine. 

Knox was taken and sent to the galleys for 
a year. Then he returned, and was frequently 
in St. Andrews, preaching in the town kirk, 
founded, perhaps, by the confessor of Saint 
Margaret, preaching here some of his last ser- 
mons. **I saw him everie day of his doctrine 
go hulie and fear," wrote James Melville, "with 
a furrning of martriks about his neck, a staff 
in the an hand," and lifted up to the pulpit 
"whar he behovite to lean at his first entrie; 
bot or he had done with his sermont, he was so 
active and vigorus, that he lyk to ding that 
pulpit in blads and fly out of it." The pulpit 
held. And so did the doctrine of Knox. 



The Kingdom of Fife 167 

The square tower of St. Eegulus, a pre-Nor- 
man bit of architecture, perhaps Culdee, stands 
southeast of the cathedral. Dr. Johnson was 
indignant with Boswell that he missed it. This 
with the many other towers of church and col- 
lege make St. Andrews a towered town. 

There is an air, an atmosphere, in St. An- 
drews; it is an academic town, serene, certain 
of itself, quiet, with wide streets and gray stone 
buildings. It is full of dignity, full of repose, 
as a northern Oxford combined with a northern 
Canterbury should be. There is a spell of an- 
cientry over the gray old walls, but it is un- 
broken ancientry; if there is a bar sinister, the 
present generation has forgotten it. 

And, of course — oh, not of course, but pri- 
marily — there is golf. There is golf every- 
where in Scotland. The golf ball and not the 
thistle is the symbol of Scotland to-day, and 
from the Tee at St. Andrews the Golf Ball has 
been driven round the world. James VI, care- 
ful Scot, recognized golf as an industry, and 
granted letters patent in 1618 for the manufac- 
ture of golf balls — the old leather, feather- 
stuffed sphere — to James Melville and William 
Berwick. 

Edinburgh is ringed about with golf courses, 
public and private. So is Scotland. The 



168 The Spell of Scotland 

Firth of Forth is continuous with them, from 
North Berwick where the fleeting traveler is as 
certain to see golf balls as he is to see the Bass, 
up to St. Andrews. The Links of Leith are the 
most historic, for it was on these that Charles 
I was playing when news came of the Irish re- 
bellion — and all that it led to. And here, his 
son, later James II, played against two Eng- 
lish noblemen who had declared they could beat 
him, and James, cannily — true Scot ! — chose the 
best player in Scotland, one Paterson an Edin- 
burgh cobbler — and gave him the wager, and 
doubled it, out of which Paterson built for him- 
self Golfer's Land in the Canongate. The 
Links of the Forth are not a golf course, al- 
though there may be some who assert that they 
were once an ancient course, say, for King 
Arthur and his Knights. 

Sealand, shoreland, it seems, makes the ideal 
golf course, the soil growing with short crisp 
grass that makes a springy and slippery turf, 
and makes a keen game ; the inlander, of course, 
and the American inlander, may not under- 
stand that golf can never quite be golf, cer- 
tainly never be the true Scottish rite, unless it 
is played near the sea, with the tang of the sea 
and of golf entering into one 's blood — and, pref- 
erably at St. Andrews. 



The Kingdom of Fife 169 

At St. Andrews golf is a business, a subli- 
mated business; or better, an education. De- 
grees are taken in it quite as higli and requir- 
ing as thorough a training as at the University. 
It is to St. Andrews that the good golfer goes 
when he dies. And he aspires to go there be- 
fore. 

Or, rather at St. Andrews golf is a religion. 
Half the stories told of golf are, as might be 
expected of a game which came to its flowering 
in Scotland, religious, or irreligious. And one 
of the best of them is told in Stewart Dick's 
book on "The Forth." A Scots minister was 
playing and playing rather badly, and express- 
ing himself in words if not in strokes. (Only 
those of you who have read "Sentimental 
Tommy" will understand that unconsciously I 
have played on the word ' ' stroke ! ") The min- 
ister exclaimed bitterly as he emerged from his 
unholy battle with the bunker^ — is Bunker Hill, 
perhaps a hazard in golf? — "Ah maun gie it 
up! ah maun gie it up!" "What!" cried his 
partner alarmed, "gie up gowf?" "Naw, 
naw," returned the minister, "gie up the meen- 
istry." 

Perhaps to amend again, golf at St. Andrews 
is life. And in their death they are not di- 
vided. The graveyard near the Abbey, with 



170 The SpeU of Scotland 

stones hoary from the sixteenth century, is 
renowned to-day because it contains the graves 
of good golfers, Allan Eobertson, old Tom Mor- 
ris, and young Tom Morris, the greatest golfer 
since Paterson, dead at the pathetic age of 24; 
after that comes a man's best golfing years, 
that is, for his pleasure. Young Tom's grave 
is marked by an elaborate monument with an 
inscription that befits a king. 




CHAPTEE VI 

TO THE NORTH 

NE leaves Edinburgh for the North — the 
haunted North — as in a royal progress. 
The train moves out of the Waverley sta- 
tion, and through the Gardens, under the very 
shadow of Castle Eock. 

And it moves through the scant few miles of 
country, richly cultivated, suburban fairly, yet 
there are level wheatlands, and country cot- 
tages and orchards; it is southern, English, 
these few miles down to the Forth. 

"The blackbird sang, the skies were clear and clean, 
We bowled along a road that curved its spine 
Superbly sinuous and serpentine 
Thro' silent symphonies of summer green, 
Sudden the Forth came on us — sad of mien, 
No cloud to colour it, no breeze to line; 
A sheet of dark dull glass, without a sign 
Of life or death, two beams of sand between, 
"Water and sky merged blank in mist together, 
The Fort loomed spectral, and the Guardship's spars 
Traced vague, black shadows on the shimmery glaze : 
We felt the dim, strange years, the gray, strange weather, 
The still, strange land, unvexed of sun or stars, 
Where Lancelot rides clanking thro' the haze." 

171 



172 The Spell of Scotland 

To every one comes this sense of strange 
years and a strange land, even at Queensferry, 
even to Henley. 

The inn, where we have all pnt up in imag- 
ination, with Scott, and again with Stevenson, 
lies under the bridge, as though it would escape 
the quick curious gaze from these iron girders 
so high above what Scott ever dreamed or 
Davy Balfour. And then, the train creeps out 
over this modern audacity, this very ugly iron 
spanning of the river. Fortunately we are 
upon it and cannot see its practical, monstrous 
being, "that monster of utility," as Lord Eose- 
bery called it. He should know its phrase, 
since it is ever present in the view from his 
Dalmeny Park, lying east of the Bridge and 
south of the Forth. 

This is precisely where Queen Margaret was 
ferried to and fro a thousand years ago. The 
monks who had charge of the ferry took from 
the toll every fourth and every fortieth penny 
— a delightful bit of geometric finance. Who 
could calculate and who would dispute the cal- 
culation, of fourth and fortieth ? 



To the North 173 



Dunfermline 

"The King sits in Dunfermline toun 
Drinking the blude-red wine." 

Because of such lines as these I would cross 
far seas, merely to have been, if far lonely de- 
structive centuries after, in the very place of 
their being. 

For Dunfermline is surely a very kingly 
name for a king's town, and ''blude-red" wine 
is of such a difference from mere red, or blood- 
red wine. What wonder that Alexander III, 
of whom it is written, went to his death over 
at Kinghorn in such a tragic way ! 

But the king who forever sits in Dunfermline 
is that Malcolm of the eleventh century who 
brings hither something more than legend yet 
something as thrilling, as "authentic" as leg- 
end. Malcolm is the son of Duncan, in Shake- 
speare's play, and in history. 

"The son of Duncan 
From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth, 
Lives in the English court ; and is received 
Of the most pious Edward with such grace 
That the malevolence of fortune nothing 
Takes from his high respect," 



174 The Spell of Scotland 

Malcolm, after "the deep damnation of Ms 
taking off," fled from the red wrath of Mac- 
beth and into the far prophecy of Banquo, to 
the court of Edward the Confessor. There 
perhaps he met Margaret ; or perhaps not, since 
she was grand-niece to the Confessor, and Mal- 
colm was a middle-aged man when this first 
royal Scottish romance occurs. When he re- 
turned he built himself a castle here on the safe 
north side of the Forth ; if ever any place were 
safe in that eleventh century. He waited here 
the coming of Margaret, and she came, the first 
Margaret of England. 

It was the first year after the Conquest, and 
Princess Margaret with her brother and sister 
were fleeing to her mother's people in Bo- 
hemia. They were wrecked far north in the 
Firth of Forth — ^which thereby becomes part of 
the legendary coast of Bohemia. She landed 
at St. Margaret's Hope, the first bay to the 
west of North Queensferry. Malcolm saw her 
from his high tower — and they were married 
— and they lived happily ever after, and richly 
for a quarter of a century; and they live im- 
mortally now. 

Their history is certain, but it reads like a 
romance. It may be read, very exquisitely set 
forth, in *'The Tides of Spring," a one-act 



To the North 175 



drama by Arthur Upson, the young American 
poet whose sonnet on Calton Hill I have just 
quoted; a poet who went to his death so trag- 
ically and so beautifully in Lake Bemidji in 
Minnesota, a few years ago. 

The story in the play, of Malcolm and Mar- 
garet, is all apple blossoms and spring tides; 
it is very lovely. Margaret has met Malcolm 
before, and destiny brings her to Scotland and 
to the king. It is a beautiful beginning to a 
long enduring love story that through all the 
reality of history shows a tender devotion from 
this stern northern king to the saintly queen 
from the Saxon South. 

They safeguarded themselves and their royal 
flock in Edinburgh, but they lived in Dunferm- 
line. Margaret knew a richer and a more re- 
ligious life than Malcolm, and she it was who 
laid the foundations of the kingdom, in court 
and church. ''Whatever she refused, he re- 
fused also ; whatever pleased her, he also loved, 
for the love of her," says her confessor. 
English Margaret, unlike the later English 
Margaret of Alexander III, did not find the 
North ''a sad and solitary place"; and unlike 
the English Margaret of James IV she was 
saintly, a white pearl in this wild red time. 

Malcolm and Margaret became the father 



176 The Spell of Scotland 

and motlier of a royal brood, four kings of Scot- 
land, and of Queen Matilda of England — surely 
Banquo saw clearly on that terrible night; his 
prophecy began with a royal rush. 

But who would not live a lovely and pleasant 
life in this well-placed royal burg, serene upon 
her hill? Rich green fields spread down to the 
Forth, the red network of the bridge lifts itself 
into view, far to the left sweeps the Firth out 
to North Berwick Law and the Bass, and Edin- 
burgh swims in the haze against the leonine 
mountain that is ever her guard. 

The Abbey gives the town its special dignity. 
There is nothing left of the church built by 
Queen Margaret — where she robbed the box of 
the money the king had just given at mass if 
she found the poor requiring more immediate 
help. But this ancient nave built by Mar- 
garet's son David is so very ancient that one 
could well spare the accurate historic knowl- 
edge that it is a generation too late for emo- 
tion. There are ponderous round pillars that 
could have sustained all the history we require 
of them, high casements, a bare triforium, al- 
together a Davidic place, a simplicity, a truth 
about it, that we would not dispute. 

The new church was built a century ago over 
the old, and the ancient nave is like an aisle in 



To the North 177 



the new. Certain details, like the little Nor- 
man doorway, once walled-up in the time of 
Knox, reward us with their preserved beauty. 

The tombs of Malcolm and Margaret are 
without the wall. Malcolm perhaps is there; 
they carried bodies far in those days of mate- 
rial resurrection, and would have brought Mal- 
colm from Northumberland. But Margaret, 
canonized next century, was too precious to re- 
main in Ultima Thule, so Spain carried her 
away — and who knows where she rests? 

But within, before the high altar — or shall 
we say since this is a reformed place, before 
the pulpit? — rests the body of The Bruce. It 
is no doubt The Bruce. For Dunfermline was 
forgotten in rebellious times, and the tombs 
were undisturbed. Even in the North transept 
there rest the bones of eleven kings earlier than 
The Bruce. 

Yes, it is very certain The Bruce, wrapped in 
gold cloth in the thirteenth century, his heart 
only missing and lying at Melrose. Scott who 
was everywhere and investigating everything 
saw the tomb opened and pronounced — King 
Eobert Bruce. One could wish the great let- 
ters about the modern tower looking like an 
electric sign, were ''reformed." But here 
within the quiet, to stand at the very spot where 



178 The Spell of Scotland 

is the dust of so mighty a man, mighty in 
valour, mighty in sovereignty — I find it a more 
substantial emotion than I have felt in the In- 
valides. 

Ancientry preserves its unbroken descent 
outside the church. The mother of Wallace is 
buried here, and the thorn he planted to mark 
her grave still flourishes, to the ninth century 
after. 

The people who sit in Dunfermline town have 
not too much concern for King Eobert and 
King Alexander. Nor do they do much sit- 
ting, these busy industrious Dunfermliners. 
They are living their own lives, and making 
for themselves profit through the generosity of 
a later fellow citizen. 

Dunfermline is a center of great coal fields, 
and center of the Scotch linen making. So the 
town is modern, looks modern, and the people 
move briskly. If they know you are a tourist 
on ancient errand bent, they look curiously. 
You come from so far to recapture ancient life, 
when you might have so much modern life in 
your own country. 

They know what America means. For An- 
drew Carnegie is their fellow citizen, or would 
be had he not become an American. Seventy 
years ago he was born in a cottage toward 



To the North 179 



which the Dunfermline folk look with the at- 
tention we show the Abbey. And Carnegie has 
not only given a library to Dunfermline — yes, 
a library — Malcolm could not read Margaret's 
books, but he had them richly bound and be- 
jeweled and kissed them in reverence of her. 
But the Laird has given a technical school, and 
the Pittencrieff Glen, which, is a lovely pleasure 
ground with the scant stones of Malcolm's pal- 
ace above, and a trust of two million and a 
half dollars, which the wise town corporation 
is busy utilizing for the advancement of Dun- 
fermline town. 



Loch Leven 

And on to Loch Leven. I cannot think that 
any one can come upon this castle without emo- 
tion. Or he should never come to Scotland. 

It is a famous fishing lake, a peculiar kind 
of trout are abundant, twenty-five thousand 
taken from it eacb year; rather I have given 
the round numbers, but an exact toll of the fish 
taken is required by law, and for the past year 
it was, with Scottish accuracy, something more 
or something less than twenty-five thousand. 
The lake is controlled altogether by an anglers 



180 The Spell of Scotland 

association. No boat can row pn it, no fisher- 
man can cast his line, but by permission. 

There is a small shop in Edinburgh where 
tickets and tackle can be taken, and much ad- 
vice from the canny Scot who keeps the shop, 
and who would make your fishing expedition a 
success. *'I don't know what your scruples 
are," he ventured, '^but if ye want the Loch 
Leven boatmen to be satisfied, I'd advise ye to 
take wi' a bit o' Scotch. A wee bit drappie 
goes a long wa." 

''Just a wee deoch and doris!" 

We remembered Harry Lauder, and won- 
dered if we could say ''It's a braw bricht moon 
licht nicht." Or would those redoutable boat- 
men ken that we were but pretending to Scotch 
and even suspect our "Scotch"? 

They did not. 

The Green hotel is an excellent place to stay, 
kept by a Scotchman who knows that in Amer- 
ica every one knows every one else. We slept 
in feather beds, and we inspected the collection 
of "stanes," one of the best I have ever seen in 
Scotland, a great variety, some of them natural 
boulders, some wood with iron weights — some- 
day I must brave the rigours of a Scotch win- 
ter and see them curl on Duddingston or on 
Leven. And I should like to see Bob Dunbar 



To the North 181 



of St. Paul, champion curler of America, meas- 
ure his skill against the champion of Scotland. 

And, of course, there was talk with the Scot 
host. ''So ye 're American. Well, maybe ye 
ken a mon that lives in Minn'apolis. He's twa 
sisters live here; and he's built a hoose for 
them." It happened that we did ken of this 
man, who came from Kinross to Minneapolis 
with only his Scotch canniness, and has built 
the Donaldson business into one of the great 
department stores of America. 

And next day, after we had slept on feather 
beds, we had our fishing in Loch Leven, with 
thousands of wild swan disputing our posses- 
sion; a big boat, with big oars, sweeps, one man 
to each oar, one a loquacious fellow with no 
dialect (he might as well have been English), 
and the other taciturn with a dialect thick as 
mud or as Lauder's. And we caught two of 
the twenty-five thousand odd which were cred- 
ited to that year. 

As the train came alongside Loch Leven on 
its way to Kinross station, suddenly I felt Mary 
as I never have realized her, before or since. 
There across the lake lay St. Serf's isle, and 
there rose the keep of the old castle. And over 
that water, as plainly — ^more plainly, than the 
fishing boats that lay at their ease — ^I saw her 



182 The Spell of Scotland 

take boat on a still evening, May 2, 1568, at 
half past seven o'clock from prison — to Hberty 
— to prison! 

I was not mistaken. She who was with me 
saw it, as distinctly, as vividly. Perhaps it 
was that all our lives this had been to us one 
of the great adventuring moments — for which 
we would exchange any moment of our lives. 
We were idolaters always, Mariolaters. And 
now we know that places are haunted, and that 
centuries are of no account; they will give up 
their ghosts to those who would live in them. 

"Put off, put off, and row with speed, 
For now is the time and the hour of need, 
To oars, to oars, and trim the bark. 
Nor Scotland's queen be a warder's mark; 
Yon light that plays 'round the castle moat, 
Is only the warder's random shot; 
Put off, put off, and row with speed. 
For now is the time and the hour of need. 

"Those pond'rous keys shall the kelpies keep. 
And lodge in their caverns, so dark and deep, 
Nor shall Loch Leven's tower and hall 
Hold thee, our lovely lady, in thrall; 
Or be the haunts of traitors sold, 
"While Scotland has hands and hearts so bold. 
Then onward, steersman, row with speed. 
For now is the time and the hour of need. 

"Hark! the alarum bell has rung. 
The warder's voice has treason sung, 



To the North 183 

The echoes to the falconets roar, 
(]hime sweetly to the dashing shore; 
Let tower, hall, and battlement gleam, 
We steer by the light of the taper's gleam, 
For Scotland and Mary on with speed. 
Now, now, is the time and the hour of need !" 

Because of that experience, because of the 
feeling I have for Queen Mary, I have never 
landed upon St. Serf's island. It has hap- 
pened, quite without my making intentional 
pilgrimage, that I have been in many places 
where Queen Mary has been; and willingly I 
have made my accidental pilgrimages of loy- 
alty. I have stood in the turret at Eoscoff 
where she landed when only five, hurried from 
Scotland that she might escape sinister Eng- 
land; in the chapel in Notre Dame where she 
was married to the Dauphin; in the chateau at 
Orleans where she lived with him much of that 
brief happy French life she loved so dearly; 
in the two small garret chambers where she 
lodged in Coventry; in Hardwick Hall, where 
Bess of Hardwick was her stern jailer ; at Foth- 
eringay where nothing remains of that ensan- 
guined block but a low heap of stones which 
the grass covers; in Peterborough where she 
found her first resting place; in Westminster 
her last final resting place; and in many and 
many a haunted place of this Scottish land. 



184 The Spell of Scotland 

And just before starting north I made a little 
journey to Linlithgow which lies twenty miles 
west of Edinburgh. The palace overlooks a 
quiet blue loch, a blue smiling bit of water, on 
which much royalty has looked forth, and on 
which the eyes of Mary first looked. There, in 
the unroofed palace of Linlithgow, in the 
'' drawing-room, " in December, 1542, was born 
that queen who ever since has divided the 
world. 

"Of all the palaces so fair 
Built for the royal dwelling, 
In Scotland far beyond compare 

Linlithgow is excelling. 
And in the park in jovial June 
How sweet the merry linnet's tune, 
How blithe the blackbird's lay." 

It was the dower-house of Scottish queens, 
and hither James V brought Mary of Lorraine 
after he had married her at St. Andrews. (I 
wondered if there was any haunting memory of 
Margaret of Denmark who sat here sewing 
when the nobles raged through the palace seek- 
ing the life of James III. Or of Margaret of 
England as she sat here waiting for James IV 
to return from Flodden.) 

Of the regency of Mary of Lorraine, when 
James V died and Mary was a baby, Knox 
spluttered that it was ''as semlye a sight (yf 




DRAWING-ROOM, LINLITHGOW PALACE, WHERE QUEEN 
MART WAS BORN. 



To the North 185 



men had eis) as to putt a sadill upoun the back 
of ane unrowly kow." Knox did not pick his 
language with any nicety when he said his say 
of women and the monstrous regiments of them. 
And to his Puritan soul there could come no 
approval of the love affairs of Mary of Lor- 
raine, such as that one sung by the Master of 
Erskine, who was slain at Pinkiecleuch — 

"I go, and wait not quhair, 
I wander heir and thair, 
I weip and siehis ryeht sair 

With panis smart; 
Now must I pass away, away, 
In wilderness and lanesome way, 
Alace ! this woeful day 

We suld departe." 

And now there is neither Margaret nor 
Mary, neither regent nor reformer, palace of 
neither Linlithgow nor Leven. How the de- 
structions of man have thrown palaces and doc- 
trines open to the winds of heaven. And how 
purifying this destruction. And what precious 
things have passed with them, what tears of 
women have been shed, and how are the mouths 
of men become dust. 

Loch Leven has one lovely gracious memory 
of Mary in the days before everything was 
lost. She was lodging here, and had sent for 
Knox to come from Edinburgh. 



186 The Spell of Scotland 

''She travailed with him earnestly for two 
hours before her supper, that he would protect 
the Catholic clergy from persecution." Knox 
slept in the castle, but ''before the sun," as he 
records, he was awakened by the sound of horns 
and of boats putting off to the mainland. For 
the queen would go a-hawking. 

Presently Knox was roused. The queen 
would have him join her "be-west Kinross," to 
continue the conversation. 

The reformer did not rise as early as the 
queen — the serenity of that righteous con- 
science! He rose reluctantly at her summons. 
His reforming eyes, no doubt, looked with dis- 
pleasure on the exquisite beauties of the unre- 
formed morning, the mists lying soft on the 
Lomonds, day just emerging from night. 

So he joined her, and they rode together, she 
on her horse, he on his hackney. 

And the morning came on, and the day was 
a glory. 

Mary warned Knox that a certain Bishop 
sought to use him, and Knox afterward ac- 
knowledged the value of her warning. She 
asked him to settle a quarrel between Argyle 
and his wife, her half sister, as Knox had done 
before. And often no doubt she glanced at her 
hawk hanging in the high Scottish sky. 



To the North 187 

And finally she declared — ''as touching our 
reasoning of yesternight, I promise to do as ye 
required. I shall summon the offenders and 
ye shall know that I shall minister justice." 

And the reformer, softened by the morning, 
and by Mary's eyes — "I am assured then that 
ye shall please God and enjoy rest and pros- 
perity within your realm." 

And Knox rode off. And Mary rode hawk- 
ing. 

The time was not yet come when Mary should 
say — ''Yon man gar me greet and grat never 
tear himself. I will see if I can gar him 
greet." 

Or, for Knox to pray — "Oh, Lord, if thy 
pleasure be, purge the heart of the Queen's 
Majestic from the venom of idolatry, and de- 
liver her from the bondage and the thralldom 
of Satan." 

Perth 

Perth may be the Fair City, but it is scarce 
fair among cities, and is chiefly regarded even 
by itself as a point of departure, the Gate of 
the Highlands. The railway platform is at 
least a third of a mile long, and very bewilder- 
ing to the unsuspecting visitor who thought 



188 The Spell of Scotland 

he was merely coming to the ancient Celtic 
capital. 

For, very far backward, this was the chief 
city of the kingdom, before Scotland had spread 
down to the Forth, and down to the Border. 
Even so recently (?) as the time of James the 
First it was held the fairest city in the king- 
dom. But the assassination of that monarch 
must have led the Jameses to seek a safer city 
in which to be fair. 

There is a touch of antiquity about the town. 
One is shown the house of the Fair Maid; in 
truth that being the objective of the casual 
traveler signs in the street point the way. It 
may or may not be. But we agreed to let Scott 
decide these things and he, no doubt, chose this 
house. Curfew Street that runs by, looking 
like a vennel — vennel? I am certain — was in- 
habited rather by lively boys, and no fair head 
looked out from the high window that would 
have furnished an excellent framing for the fair 
face of Catherine Glover. 

The North Inch I found to be not an island 
in the Tay, but a meadow, where every possible 
out-door activity takes place among the de- 
scendants of Clans Chattan and Quhele — there 
is race-course, golf links, cricket field, football, 
grazing, washing. I trust the clans are some- 



To the North 189 



what evener now in nnmbers, although there 
were left but one Chattan to level the Quheles. 
Coming from the Chatian tribe I must hope the 
centuries since that strifeful day have brought 
reexpansion to the Chattans. 

Farther up the Inch, onto the Whin, the eye 
looks across to Scone. The foot does not cross, 
for there is nothing left of the old Abbey, not 
even of the old palace where Charles II, last 
king crowned in Scotland, suffered coronation 
— and was instructed in the ways of well doing 
according to the Covenant. Even the stone of 
destiny was gone then, brought from Dunstaff- 
nage, and taken to Westminster. 

There is nothing, or only stones, left of the 
Blackfriar's Monastery in which James, the 
poet-king, suffered death. Surely he was born 
too soon. As last instead of first of the 
Jameses, what might he not have done in the 
ways of intelligence and beauty, as England's 
king as well as Scotland's? Very beautifully 
runs his picture of Lady Joanna Beaufort, seen 
from a window in Windsor — 

"The fairest and the freshest flower, 
That ever I saw before that hour, 
The which o' the sudden made to start 
The blood of my body to my heart ... 
Ah, sweet, are ye a worldly creature, 
Or heavenly thing in form of nature?" 



190 The Spell of Scotland 

He came back from his enforced habitation 
in England accompanied by Lady Joanna as 
Queen, and determined '4f God gives me but 
a dog's life, I will make the key keep the castle 
and the brachen bush the cow." It was a dog's 
death the gods gave. The nobles, the Grahams, 
would not keep the castle. So in Blackfriars 
the king was ' 'mercilessly dirked to death," 
notwithstanding that Catherine Douglass — the 
Douglasses were with James then — ^made a bar 
across the door with her arm where the iron 
had been sinisterly removed. A dark scene, 
with "the fairest flower" looking on. 

So, I think it not so ill, even though time 
delayed over a hundred years, that John Knox 
(May, 1559) should have preached such an in- 
cendiary sermon that in three days there was 
nothing left of Black or Gray friary but the 
broken stones. 

Nor is there anything left of Gowrie house, 
where James VI was almost entrapped and 
almost slain — **I am murdered — treason — 
treason"; the jail stands on its site. Hunting- 
ton Tower still stands down the Tay ; and there 
also James very nearly came to his death, at 
the plotting of the son of that Euthven who 
killed Eizzio and forced Mary to abdicate. 

Kinnoul Hill overlooks the town, and fur- 
nishes a very fair view of the Fair City. No 



To the North 191 



doubt it was from this height that the Eoman 
looked down upon the Tay — 

"Behold the Tiber! the vain Roman cried, 
Viewing the ample Tay from Baiglie's side; 
But where's the Scot that would the vaunt repay, 
And hail the puny Tiber for the Tay?" 

It is more wonderful to-day to know that sal- 
mon weighing seventy pounds are sometimes 
taken from this Tay. The river leads down 
through the rich Carse of Gowrie, toward Dun- 
dee and marmalade. Thither we shall not go; 
but it shall come to us. 

Ruskin spent his childhood in Perth and did 
not like it. But Ruskin liked so little in the 
world, except — ''that Scottish sheaves are more 
golden than are bound in other lands, and that 
no harvests elsewhere visible to human eye are 
so like the 'com of heaven,' as those of Strath 
Tay and Strath Earn." That is the way for 
to admire, for to see ; all, or nothing was Rus- 
kin 's way. 

Ruskin married in Perth, one of its fair- 
est maids, who lived on the slope of Kinnoul 
Hill; and then, unmarrying, the fair lady, 
looking very fair in the painted pictures, mar- 
ried a painter who once was very much about 
Perth. 

Perth is also the "Muirton" of "The Bonnie 



192 The Spell of Scotland 

Brier Bush." So some have found these en- 
virons bonny. 

In truth it is a lovely surrounding country. 
And have you not from childhood, if you read 
''Macbeth" as early as did Justice Charles E. 
Hughes, thought Birnam and Dunsinane the 
loveliest names in the world? Six miles up the 
Tay through bonny country, stands Dunsinnan 
Hill; not so lovely as our Dunsinane; once it 
was Dunscenanyse ! But Shakespeare always 
gave words their magic retouching. And once 
there stood here the castle of Dunsinane where 
a certain Lady walked in her sleep, and then 
slept. And below, you see Birnam wood — 

"Till great Birnam wood 
Do come to Dunsinane." 

To see that wood wave in the wind is fairly 
eerie ! 

Dunkeld is less of a city, more of a memory, 
exquisite in its beauty, lodged in a close fold 
of the Highlands. And you reach it through 
the station, cis-Tay, called Birnam! 

It is a quiet peaceful place, more like a now 
quiet Border town. Hither to this cathedral, 
the precious remains of Saint Columba were 
brought by the MacAlpine. So I suppose they 
still rest here, that wandering dust, that mis- 



To the North 193 



sionary zeal. Also, inharmony, here rest (?) 
the remains of the Wolf of Badenoch, wicked 
son of Eobert II, and — I am certain the pun has 
been ventured before — bad enough. Gavin 
Douglass of the Vergilian measure was bishop 
here, and Mrs. Oliphant has written stories 
round about. 

"Cam ye by Athole, lad wi' the philabeg?" 

We are getting into the Highlands, we are at 
them, from now on nothing but philabegs, pi- 
brochs, pipes, tartans and heather, nothing but 
the distilled essence of heather — heather ale? 
the secret was lost when the Picts were con- 
quered. 




CHAPTER VII 

HIGHLAND AND LOWLAND 

jANY ways lead out of Perth, but best of 
these is the foot-path way, picked up 
anywhere in the Highlands. By rail the 
road leads down to the sea, past Glarois Castle, 
built in 1500, where the room is shown in which 
Duncan was murdered in 1000, although Shake- 
speare says it was at Inverness ; and to Kirrie- 
muir, if one would match the "Bonnie Brier 
Bush" with ''The Window in Thrums." Or 
by rail the road leads to the lakes of the West, 
and to the Highlands of the North. 

For one short space I took it northward to 
the Pass of Killiecrankie, almost in fear, as a 
regiment of English mercenaries is said to have 
been a-feared in the Forty Five, three-quarters 
of a century after Killiecrankie. For here in 
a last splendid moment, Graham of Claver- 
house. Viscount of Dundee, and sometime Bon- 
nie Dundee, was killed, the battle having gone 
gloriously his way, for the glorious cause of 
Stewart and mon droit — some say by a silver 

194 



Highland and Lowland 195 

bullet, the devil having charmed the leaden bul- 
lets that were showered against his magic life ; 
those who say it are Whigs. 

Always called Bonnie Dundee by those of us 
who care for romance. To quote from Samuel 
Crothers, *'And you say they are the same? I 
cannot make them seem the same. To me there 
are two of them: Graham of Claverhouse, 
whom I hate, and the Bonnie Dundee, whom I 
love. If it 's all the same to you, I think I shall 
keep them separate, and go on loving and hat- 
ing as aforetime." 

The Pass is lovely enough, on a summer 
morning, with the sun shining fair on the High- 
lands, the blue hills misty in the distance, the 
trees thick green on both sides the bending 
Garry, and not a living thing in view, nothing 
which belongs to the Duke of Atholl who owns 
everything hereabout, except the air and the 
beauty and the memory, which I packed in my 
Pilgrim's Wallet. 

Because the Duke owns the cathedral I did 
not claim any memory beside the dust of Bon- 
nie Dundee — 

"Fling open the Westport and let me gae free." 

And now, to a certain defeat which I suffered 
near the Pass of Killiecrankie, when I "cam by 



196 The Spell of Scotland 

Athole." I was without a pMlabeg. If I had 
had it — it sounds so enhearteningly like usque- 
baugh — I think my courage would have been 
great enough to do the thing I had crossed over 
seas to do — to walk from Blair Athole through 
Glen Tilt and between the great lift of the 
Cairngorms, to Braemar. I had felt that I 
owed it to Scottish ancestors and to those who 
had lost in the Eisings. 

I remembered that Queen Mary had longed 
to be a man. When she had come into this 
North to punish Huntley, so the Scottish cal- 
endar states, ''She repenteth of nothing, but 
when the lords and others came in the morning 
from the watch, that she was not a man to know 
what life it was to lie all night in the fields, or 
to walk upon the causeway with a jack and a 
knapschall (helmet), a Glasgow buckler, and a 
broadsword." Her father's errant soul was 
hers. And once she ventured it, but in fear of 
her life, when she fled from the wraith of Darn- 
ley, to the scandalizing of the mongers, ''Her 
Majestic, in mennis claithes, buttit and spurrit, 
departed that samin nicht of Borthwick to Dun- 
bar, quhairof no man knew saif my Lord Duke 
and sum of his servants, wha met Her Majestie 
a myll off Borthwick and conveyed her hieness 
to Dunbar." 



Highland and Lowland 197 

I added another Scottish defeat. For it was 
excessively warm that summer, and Scotland 
can be as warm and as dry as Kansas. It is 
thirty miles, the mountain way. There is no 
inn. There is possibility — there is danger^ — of 
losing the way. There are no wolves, I sup- 
pose, and certainly no Wolf of Badenoch. But 
there were the unknown terrors. 

So we walked a certain stent into Glen Tilt, 
enough to know that it is wild, gloomy, one of 
the strangest wildest places, Ben-y-Gloe, the 
' ' Mountain of the Mist, ' ' rising out of the early 
morning mist, yet not so mysteriously or ma- 
jestically as the Mountain Going to the Sun. 
But no valley in our Mountain West has ever 
seemed more empty. And I suppose since Pict- 
ish time this glen has been deserted. There 
were deer, red deer, that thought they were free, 
and who looked out of their coverts indiffer- 
ently. We had not the heart to tell them that 
they belonged, body and soul, to the Duke of 
AthoU. After the Porteous riots. Queen Car- 
oline, presiding in the place of George who was 
absent in his favourite Hanover, threatened '*to 
turn Scotland into a hunting field. ' ' The Duke 
of Argyle thereupon hinted that he would have 
to '^ return to look after my hounds." Queen 
Caroline seems sovereign to-day. And espe- 



198 The Spell of Scotland 

cially on August eleventh, the day before St. 
Grouse Day, there is an ominous quiet. 

So we returned by way of Coupar Angus — 
meekly remembering the proverb, *'he that 
maun to Coupar, maun to Coupar." Here we 
changed cars, nearly losing the train, because 
we were so engrossed in watching the loading 
of the luggage, the Scotch porter cheering on 
his assistant, "we're twa strong men, hand awa, 
let's be canny." And in the great gold sunset 
that was like the glory of God upon the heav- 
enly Highlands. 

We came to Blairgowrie, where we heard in 
the twilight on the hills above the town a bird 
of magic such as I have never heard elsewhere. 
Was it a nightingale, or a night lark? It sang 
like these. 

Next morning we took coach across these 
great hills, by way of Glenshee, a very lovely 
way of going, and not to be regretted, in its 
dashing splendour of a coach and six — except 
that it was not a thirty-mile walk. But it is to 
be historically remembered, because it is the 
way Mar's men came down to the Strath of 
Tay, and brought the Rising into the Lowlands. 
We would go to meet them. 

It was a memorable day. Not even the 
Simplon pass taken on a June day when the 



Highland and Lowland 199 

road ran between fresh coacli-out-topping walls 
of glittering snow can make one forget the road 
over the Spittal of Glenshee. There were im- 
possibly purple mountains, indigo-deep, deeper 
purple than any hills I have ever seen, so does 
the ripened heather dye the distances more 
deeply. There were rocky glens, great loneli- 
ness, a mansion here and there only just on 
leaving Blairgowrie, TuUyveolan, of course; 
scarce a cottage even on the roadside; once a 
flock of sheep, near the Spittal, being worked 
by Scotch collies, with an uncanny, or, canny, 
second sense to get the master's direction. 
There was lunch at the Spittal, a one-time Hos- 
pice, like that on the Simplon. And I won- 
dered if the song ran of this lovely little glen 
set in the midst of so much primeval world — 

"O wharawa got ye that auld crookit penny, 
For ane o' bright gowd wad ye niffer wi' mel 
Richt fou are baith ends o' my gTeen silken wallet, 
And braw will your hame be in bonnie Glenshee. 

"For a' the brieht gowd in your green silken wallet 
I never wad niffer my crookit bawbee." 

The road at the top of the world runs 
smoothly enough. But when the Devil's elbow 
is reached, a tremendous and dangerous turn 
in the road, every one dismounts from the 
coach, and the sight of an adventurous motor 



200 The Spell of Scotland 

car coming down the turn does not decrease 
one's sense of peril. 



Braemar 

And then the sight of Braemar, and a con- 
sciousness that if you are about to spend more 
money at the Fife Arms or the Invercauld than 
any but royalty has a right to spend — royalty 
not having earned it — the adventure has been 
worth it. 

And to have forgotten but as the coach 
flashes by to read the tablet — 

"Here Robert Louis Stevenson lived in the summer of 
1881, and wrote 'Treasure Island.' " 

this is to be home again. 

Of course our first pilgrimage was to the 
Invercauld Arms, where we again set up the 
standard on the braes of Mar. It was here that 
Malcolm Canmore instituted the Highland 
Gathering which persists to this day. And 
here, under cover of the hunt, so did the loyal 
Jacobites conceal their intention, the Eising of 
the Fifteen was planned — and the hunters be- 
came the hunted. 

It was evening, it was the Highlands, the 



Highland and Lowland 201 

great circle of mountains lay round about. 
And if King James VIII and III had been de- 
feated these two hundred years, and dead a 
lesser time, and our loyalty had always been 
to the Prince who came rather to establish his 
father than himself, the Fifteen seemed like 
yesterday. In this remote high corner of the 
world anything is possible, even the oblivion of 
time. It seemed very vital, that faraway mo- 
ment, which in truth few persons to-day take 
into reckoning; even history recks little of it. 
But very near in this illusory twilight — was 
that the Fiery Cross that glinnnered in the 
darkness ? 

"The standard on the braes o' Mar 

Is up and streaming rarely ; 
The gathering pipe on Loehnagar 

Is sounding loud and clearly. 
The Highlandmen frae hill and glen, 
In martial hue, wi' bonnets blue, 
Wi' belted plaids and burnished blades, 

Are coming late and early. 

"Wha' wadna join our noble chief, 

The Drummond and Glengarry? 
Macgregor, Murray, Rollo, Keith, 

Panmure and gallant Harry, 
Macdonald's men, Clanranald's men, 
Mackenzie's men, Maegilvrary's men, 
Strathallan's men, the Lowland men 

Of Callander and Airlie." 



202 The Spell of Scotland 

Next day we met a gentleman we forever call 
''The Advocate of Aberdeen." In any event 
the lawyers of Aberdeen have styled themselves 
''Advocates" since so addressed by King 
James. We did not know that when we named 
him, but we preferred it to any Sandy or 
''Mac" he might legally carry. Having been 
informed by him that our name was Lowland 
and we were entitled to none of the thrills of 
the Highlands, we failed to mount farther than 
the third stage of the Morrone Hill. The wind 
blew a gale from the nor 'nor 'west, like those 
better known to us from the sou 'sou 'west. It 
was humiliating to have the Advocate of Aber- 
deen instruct us when we returned that if we 
had gone on we might have proved our High- 
land blood. 

We did not attempt Ben MacDui, although 
it may be approached by the ever-easy way of 
pony-back, even the queen — not Mary — having 
mounted it in this fashion. We were content to 
master, almost master, its pronunciation ac- 
cording to the pure Gaelic — Muich Dhui. And 
then we learned that by more accurate and later 
scientific measurement, MacDui is not the tall- 
est mountain in the kingdom, but Ben Nevis 
out-tops it. 

To make our peace with an almost forfeited 



Highland and Lowland 203 

fate, we took a dander, that is, we walked back 
toward Glen Tilt by the way we had not come. 
There is a happy little falls a couple of miles 
from the town, Corrimulzie, plunging down a 
long fall through a deep narrow gorge, but very 
pleasantly. We passed white milestone after 
white milestone, measured in particular Scot- 
tish accuracy — we timed ourselves to a second 
and found we could measure the miles by the 
numbers of our breaths. The forest is thick 
and bosky, not an original forest, doubtless. 
But I was reminded that Taylor, on his Penny- 
less Pilgrimage came to Braemar three hundred 
years ago, and wrote ''as many fir trees grow- 
ing there as would serve for masts (from this 
time to the end of the worlde) for all the 
shippes, caracks, hoyes, galleyes, boates, drum- 
iers, barkes, and water-crafte, that are now, or 
can be in the worlde these f ourty yeeres. ' ' He 
lamented the impossibility of sending them 
down to tide water where they might meet their 
proper fate. 

Only once did we meet a carriage in which 
we suspected that royalty, or at least ladies-in- 
waiting — if Duke's wives who are royal have 
such appendages — might be sitting. 

And on to the Linn of Dee, which is truly a 
marvelous place. The Advocate of Aberdeen 



204 The Spell of Scotland 

when we had asked him why so many of his 
townf oik came this way, explained with a sense 
of possession of the greater Dee, "we like to 
see what the Dee can do." Surely it can do it. 
In these rock walls it has spent centuries carv- 
ing for itself fantastic ways, until not the 
Dalles of the St. Croix can excel its rock-bound 
fantasy. Given time, the Dee can "do" pretty 
much as it pleases in granite. 

The few miles we ventured beyond the Linn 
were enough to prove that the way was long, 
the wind was cold, the minstrel was infirm and 
old. Had we walked all the mountain way we 
should have been much in need of a "plaidie to 
the angry airts." This air is very bracing. 

But we sang many Jacobite songs in memory 
of the Eisings. "Wha'U be King but Char- 
lie?" and "Charlie is my Darling," and "Over 
the sea Charlie is coming to me," and "Will ye 
no come back again." And we sang with par- 
ticular satisfaction that we were not, after all, 
to suffer royal wrongs — surely there is a fall- 
ing away in the far generations in the far 
places, since a King's son could so adventure — 

"Dark night earn' on, the tempest roar'd, « 

Loud o'er the hills and valleys, 
An' where was't that your Prince lay down 
Who's hame should been a palace? 



Highland and Lowland 205 

He row'd him in a Highland plaid, 

Which cover'd him but sparely, 
An' slept beneath a bush o' broom, 

Oh, wae's me for Prince Charlie." 

On these braes of Mar, and in these hills and 
beside these very streams, the Prince made his 
adventure — ^yes, and simply because of that ad- 
venture will be forever remembered by those 
who believe in the heroic mood. 

To leave Braemar the road leads down to Bal- 
later, with motor cars to take it swiftly; past 
the castles of Mar old and new, where betimes 
sits the present Earl of Mar, not conning Ris- 
ings but writing to the magazines his idea of a 
free Scotland, which shall have its Home Eule 
like Ireland — which was once Scotland — and 
which may have it at the great peace; down 
through an increasingly pleasant country. Bal- 
moral Castle looks deserted now of its queen — 
and when queens desert, places are much emp- 
tier than when kings leave. But ''queen's 
weather" is still possible here, even though the 
castle and our way are overshadowed by Loch- 
nagar, on which we bestow more than passing 
glance in memory of that Gordon who was Lord 
Byron. 

"Ah ! there my young footsteps in infancy wander'd ; 
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid ; 



206 The Spell of Scotland 

On chieftains long perished my memory jDonder'd, 
As daily I strove through the pine-eover'd glade; 

I sought not my home till the day's dying glory 
Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star; 

For fancy was cheer'd by traditional story, 

Disclosed by the natives of dark Loch na Garr." 

And one glance at Lumphanan — ''This 
Macbeth then slew they there in the wood of 
Lumphanan," so runs the old chronicle. 



Aberdeen 

There is no city in Scotland which seems to 
me to have more personality, a more distinct 
personality, than Aberdeen. It is plainly a 
self-sufficient city, and both in politics and in 
religion it thinks for itself, mindless if its 
thinking is not that of the rest of the king- 
dom. 

Its provost cannot leave its borders ; once he 
attended a battle, many and many a year ago, 
nineteen miles from the city at Harlow, and 
sad to say, he was killed. So now the provost 
remains in the city, he cannot leave it more 
than President can leave Eepublic, or Pope the 
Vatican. 

In religion, Aberdeen is strongly Episcopa- 
lian, where it is not Catholic. In truth there 



Highland and Lowland 207 

is a band of Catliolicism running across the 
country, from Aberdeen to Skye, through the 
heart of the Highlands. As might be expected, 
the Highlands never yielded to the reformatory 
methods of John Knox, but remained of the 
faith. 

There is no city that looks so Scottish, and 
yet so different, as Aberdeen. It is a dignified 
and an extraordinarily clean city. After a rain 
its granite glitters as though it had been newly 
cut, and to one accustomed to smoke-grimed 
American cities Aberdeen looks as though it 
were built this morning, when no doubt much 
of this granite has a right to the hoar of an- 
tiquity. 

Marischal College, founded by the Keiths, 
who were Earl Marischals, boasts of being the 
greatest granite pile in the world, after the 
Escorial. Having walked a day through a cir- 
cumscribed portion of that Spanish granite, I 
chose to limit my footsteps in Marischal col- 
lege. Only to verify the stone did I enter. 
And there it stood, over the doorway of the 
inner entrance hall, that stone which gives me 
a certain ancestral right of hauteur — 

Thay half said. 
Quhat say thay? 
Lat thame say. 



208 The Spell of Scotland 

Scots are astonishingly fond of mottoes. 
They carve them, like Orlando's verse, if not 
on every tree, on every lintel and over every 
fireplace; from Nemo me impune lacessit of 
the royal thistle race, to every clan and every 
cottage. 

King's College (1495) is an older founda- 
tion than Marischal (1593), and where once 
they were rivals, since the Eighteen Sixties 
they have been harmonized, and since Mr. Car- 
negie gave them his benefaction, education is 
free in this University of Aberdeen. King's 
College, if not the next greatest granite pile, 
has a stone cross, which is the typical capping 
of noble edifice in Scotland; in truth it begins 
at Newcastle on Tyne when one enters the Eng- 
lish beginning of the Border. 

The cathedral of St. Machar's, first founded 
by the saint who was a disciple of Columba, 
was refounded by the saint who was David I — 
of course; what a busy saint this was — 
and looks the part of age, but of strength 
rather than arrogance, with its low lying 
towers. 

There is an old town even in the new town, 
and the contrast is sharp. If one gets lost, 
turns suddenly into this old part, it is a curi- 
ous experience. The buildings look medieval, 



Highland and Lowland 209 

French provincial, and tlie people look strange 
and foreign; also they treat you, a foreigner, 
with all that curiosity, and something of that 
disrespect which you, of course, deserve, hav- 
ing interloped into their sanctuary. The Duke 
of Cumberland lived here for six weeks before 
advancing on Culloden, and while he did not 
''butcher" here to deserve his name, his sol- 
diers left as ugly a fame behind them as Mont- 
rose's men, what time he made bloody assault 
on the city. 

And in Broad Street may be found the house 
in which George Gordon, Lord Byron, lived in 
his school days. In Don Juan, he autobio- 
graphically remembers — 

"As 'Auld Lang Syne' brings Scotland one and all, 

Seoteh plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear 
streams 
The Dee, the Don, Balgownie's Brig's black wall, 
All my boy feeling's, all my gentle dreams 

Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall 
Like Banquo's offspring; — floating past me seems 
My childhood in this childishness of mine : 

I care not — ^'tis a glimpse of 'Auld Lang Syne.' " 

Aberdeen is a sea city, lying between the 
mouths of the Dee and the Don. A bridge, 
dating from 1320, crosses the Don, and Byron 
steadfastly avoided it, lest he, a single son, 
might be found thereon on the single foal of 



210 The Spell of Scotland 

a mare, and the prophecy be filled, the brig fall 
down. 

One day in a small booth off Union Street I 
stopped to buy strawberries — if you pick up 
southern England in early May and make In- 
verness in late August, you can follow red 
strawberries and red poppies in the wheat all 
the way from Land's End to John o' Groat's. 
I asked the price of the berries and was told. 
I asked again, and again. Finally, not ears 
but intuition told me. It was a Scandinavian- 
Gaelic-English. I remembered that in Edin- 
burgh I had once asked a policeman the way, and 
hearing his reply I turned to my friend — 
''Wouldn't you think you were in Minneapo- 
lis?" For especially in Aberdeen you are 
looking to that Norway with which Scotland 
was so closely linked, as with all the Scandina- 
vian countries, in the early centuries, till the 
Maid of Norway, granddaughter to Alexander 
III died on her way to take the crown, and till 
after Margaret of Denmark brought the Ork- 
neys and the Hebrides to James III as her 
dowery. 

"To Norroway, to Norroway, 
To Norroway o'er the faem; 
The King-'s daughter of Norroway, 
'Tis thou maun brins: her hame." 



Highland and Lowland 211 

And I remember the tragedy of that frus- 
trated journey — 

"0 forty miles off Aberdeen, 
'Tis fifty fathoms deep, 
And there lies gnde Sir Patrick Spens, 
Wi' the Scots lords at his feet." 

Eemembering the sea, which I had not yet 
seen, I tried to make my way down to the shore, 
but Aberdeen is a sea-port, and docks instead 
of shore line its sea edge. What I was seeking 
was rather rocks — 

^'On the rocks by Aberdeen, 
Where the whistlin' wave had been 
As I wandered and at e'en 
Was eerie — " 

And after a visit to the fishmarket, which is 
a truly marvelous monstrous place, I set out 
to find the rocks, toward the south. 

There is never a place more rock-bound, 
more broken into fantastic shapes, and worn 
daily and increasingly by the waves, than this 
east coast. Neither Biarritz nor Brittany nor 
Nova Scotia is more broken or more thunder- 
ous in resentment. I have not seen the Magel- 
lan straits. 

One is constantly conscious of fish on this 
east coast. The railroads form the Great East 



212 The SpeU of Scotland 

Fish route. I have been coming up in the night 
from London and had to hold my breath until 
we passed these swift fish trains which have 
the right of way to the metropolitan market. 
A little south of Aberdeen is the village of Fin- 
don; whence finnan haddie. 



Dunnottar 

The rocks which were my goal were those 
just below Stonehaven. At Stonehaven the 
French had landed supplies for the Forty Five 
— as from Montrose, a few miles farther down 
the coast, King James had sailed after the fail- 
ure of the Fifteen. Fishing vessels lay idly 
in the narrow harbour, their tall masts no doubt 
come '*frae Norroway o'er the faem," since 
the trees on the east coast have not increased 
from that day when Dr. Johnson found the 
sight of a tree here equal to that of a horse in 
Venice. 

Dunnottar stands on a great crag of this 
coast, against which the sea has beaten angrily 
since time and the coast began, against which 
it moans and whines at low tide, and then, come 
high tide, rushes thunderously in to see what 
havoc it can work once more. 



Highland and Lowland 213 

Dunnottar is impregnable. I cannot believe 
that sixteen inch guns — is it seventeen, now? — 
would make impression on this great red crag. 
I know they would; after Liege and Namur 
one knows that modern guns can outlaw any 
impregnability of the past. But I do not be- 
lieve. 

The road from Stonehaven runs for two miles 
over level country, and then, suddenly, the edge 
breaks in a sheer cliff. 

Across a natural moat of great depth, on a 
clitf crag, stands the castle. The road picks 
its way down perilously ; only a mule path, and 
that precipitous. Then it crosses the dry bed 
where once may have hung a draw bridge, and, 
entering through a portcullis, it climbs to the 
castle, through a winding, tortuous way, some- 
times a climb, sometimes a flight of steps, some- 
times open to the sky but ramped sternly on 
either side, sometimes through stone canyons; 
a place impossible to surprise. Finally you 
reach the top, the sky. 

The top is three acres large. 

Far back, no doubt in Culdee times, a church 
stood there. Because churches must be sanc- 
tuary they took the high places ; otherwise why 
should one lift prayer to God when the mad 
sea was continually contradicting the faith? 



214 The Spell of Scotland 

Sir William Keith, being a warrior with a 
warrior's eye, looked on the place, found it 
strategically good, and built a tower thereon. 
He was excommunicated by the Bishop of St. 
Andrew's — who did not anticipate the Lords 
of the Congregation and the Covenanters. Sir 
William appealed to Eome. Eome ordered the 
ban removed. And ordered Sir William to 
build a church on the mainland, beyond the 
protestantism of the waves. 

It began its war history early. In 1297 four 
thousand English took refuge here to escape 
Wallace. Nothing daunted, Wallace scaled the 
cliff, entered a window — the proof is there in 
the window — opened the gate, let in his men, 
and slaughtered the four thousand. 

Edward III took it, and Montrose besieged 
it. 

Then it swung back into loyal legal posses- 
sion, and experienced a bit of history worth 
the telling. In 1652 — Montrose had been dead 
two years — ^the Countess Dowager had taken 
into safe keeping the regalia of Scotland. The 
castle was besieged by those who had killed 
their king and would destroy the king's in- 
signia. If the castle should fall the very sym- 
bol of the king's royalty would be melted, as 
Cromwell melted the regalia of England. The 



Highland and Lowland 215 

defense was not strong. At any moment it 
might be forced to surrender. But the regalia 
must be saved. 

So the Lady Keith plotted. It was a wom- 
an's plot — always there is the woman in Jaco- 
bitism. The wife of the minister at Kinneff 
paid a visit to the wife of the governor of 
Dunnottar; Mrs. Grainger called on Mrs. Ogil- 
vie. She had been "shopping" in Stonehaven, 
and was returning to Kinneff five miles down 
the sea. When Mrs. Grainger left the castle 
she carried with her the crown of Scotland. Sit- 
ting on her horse she made her way through 
the besieging lines, and her maid followed with 
the scepter of Scotland and the sword in a bag 
on her back. The English besiegers showed 
every courtesy to the harmless woman — and to 
the Honours of Scotland. Mrs. Grainger care- 
fully buried the treasure beneath the paving 
of Kinneff church, and not until her death did 
she betray their hiding place to her hus- 
band. 

Meanwhile Lady Keith sent her son Sir John 
to France. A little boat escaping in the night 
carried him to the French vessel lying off shore, 
and the Lady sent forth the rumour that Sir 
John had carried the regalia to the King o'er 
the water, to Charles II at Paris. It was after 



216 The Spell of Scotland 

the Eestoration that the aureate earth at Kin- 
neff was dug up. The women had saved the 
Scottish crown for the rightful lawful king. 

A dark chapter runs a quarter of a century 
later. The castle was still loyal. In truth it 
was always loyal except in brief usurpations, as 
all this corner of Scotland was loyal and royal 
and Jacobite. In 1675 in ''Whig's Vault" 
there lodged one hundred and sixty-seven Cove- 
nanters as prisoners, and they lodged badly. 
Many died, a few escaped, the rest were sold 
as slaves. Coming on ship to New Jersey as 
the property of Scott of Pitlochry, Scott and 
his wife died and almost all the covenanting 
slaves. Only a few saw the plantations of the 
New World, and could resume the worship of 
their God. The story of Dunnottar is dark. 
The castle looks the dark part it played. 

In Dunnottar churchyard on the mainland 
there is a Covenanter's stone, where "Old Mor- 
tality" was working when Scott came upon 
him. The stone carries a simple stern legend 
of heroism — and almost wins one to the cause. 

And yet, there is evidence that in stern Dun- 
nottar life had its moments other than war and 
siege. The remnants of the castle are of great 
extent; bowling gallery, ballroom, state dining- 
room, a library, a large chapel, speak a varied 



Highland and Lowland 217 

existence. There is a watch tower, a keep, ris- 
ing forty sheer feet above the high rock, with 
ascent by a winding stair, somewhat perilous 
after the centuries ; but from, the Watchman's 
seat what a prospect, landward and seaward! 
What a sense of security in the midst of peril ! 
And on the farther corner of the giddy height, 
above the rock and above the waves dashing 
far below, I found growing blue bells of Scot- 
land. 

There is one corner of the castle where I 
fain w'ould inhabit, the northwest corner that 
looks down on the sea raging cruelly upon the 
rocks that are the first line of defense against 
the onslaught of the sea, and that looks far 
over the North Sea; that sea which is more 
mysterious to me and more lovely than the 
Mediterranean; I have seen it a beautiful in- 
tense Italian blue, with an Italian sky above it. 
I have never seen it still, always surging, raging, 
always cruel. Yet I should be willing to look out 
on it for many unbroken days. And to hear the 
somber movement of the "Keltic" sonata 
played upon the rocks. 

The Earl Marischal liked the view, whatever 
his generation. The North was in his blood, 
and the sea, even though he was a landsman, 
spoke adventure. The Earl's bedroom is al- 



218 The Spell of Scotland 

most habitable to-day. Once it was a place of 
luxury. The plaster still clings to the walls 
in places, and there is a fireplace where still 
one could light a fire against the chill of the 
North. The date above is 1645, when Charles 
was still king, and there was no threat of dis- 
loyalty. The tablet unites the arms of the 
Keiths and the Seatons, the stone divided by a 
pillar surmounted by two hearts joined. The 
Keith motto, Veritas vincit, underlines the 
Keith shield ; but I like better the Seaton motto 
— Hazard yit forvard. 

The Earl's library opens out of this. And 
I doubt not it was richly stored in the days 
when the last Lord Marischal won here that 
mental habitude which made him equal in wit 
and wisdom to Voltaire. And no doubt here 
sat his mother, loyal Jacobite, steadfast Cath- 
olic, sending her two sons forth to battle for the 
lost caifi^ of the Stewarts — never lost while 
women remember — while she looked forth on 
these waters and watched for the return. The 
story runs in the Jacobite ballad of *'Lady 
Keith's Lament" — 

"I may sit in my wee eroo house, 

At the rock and the reel fu' dreary, 
I may think on the day that is gane, 

And sigh and sab till I grow weary. . . . 



i 



Highland and Low land 219 

"My father was a good lord's son, 

My mother was an earl's daughter 
An' I'll be Lady Keith ag-ain, 
That day our king comes o'er the water." 




CHAPTER VIII 

THE CIRCLE ROUND 

)'EIE iron road from Aberdeen to Inver- 
.m.v.-v^/ iiess must follow somewhat the road 
which gallant Mary took on her way to 
punish Huntley. There is a bleak stern look 
about this country as a whole, but here and 
there stand castles, or lie low the ruins of cas- 
tles, in many a chosen place of beauty; for 
harsh as were these lords, and devastating as 
were their deeds, life must have had its mo- 
ments of wonder and of delight. If Malcolm 
Canmore destroyed Inverness before the Twelve 
Hundreds, and the fat Georges destroyed In- 
verugie late in the Seventeen Hundreds, and 
all through the centuries that stretched between 
strong men built strongholds and stronger men 
took them and made mock of them, still there 
must have been gentleness and beauty. There 
were women, other than Lady Macbeth; there 
were young men and maidens noble or com- 
mon; and I suppose the glamour of romance, 

220 



The Circle Round 221 

the reality or the illusion of love, was invented 
before peace and commerce became the occupa- 
tions of men. 

Peterhead 

One brief journey I made along the bleak 
coast up to the town of Peterhead, which looks 
nearest to Norroway across the foam, and has 
a most uncompromising aspect. Peterhead is 
a penal town to-day; and it is one of a string 
of fishing villages, picturesque as fishing vil- 
lages are, except to the nose, ''that despised 
poet of the senses ' ' ; and not picturesque to the 
people, who lack the colour of fisherf oik in Brit- 
tany. But I wished to see with mine own eyes 
the ruins of Inverugie. 

It is one of the castles belonging to the Lords 
Marischal. It came to them in a curious way 
of forfeiture, an abbot dispossessed or some 
such thing, like Dunnottar, but without the 
appeal to Eome. And one of the stones 
of the castle carried the promise, and the 
threat — 

"As tang's this stane stands on this croft 
The name o' Keith shall be abaft, 
But when this stane begins to fa' 
The name o' Keith shall wear awa'." 



222 The Spell of Scotland 

The last Lord Marischal came hither, late, 
late, in the Seventeen Hundreds. He had seen 
a century move through strife to peace. In 
person he had taken part in the Eising of the 
Fifteen, a young man, but still hereditary Lord 
Marischal, and loyal to the Stewart cause. He 
had taken no part in the Eising of the Forty 
Five; he was not ''out" on that dark night. 
But the sweeping revenge of those English 
times made the Keiths attaint and — ^the stone 
dropped from its croft. The Lord Marischal 
and his brother made the continent their refuge, 
Paris in particular, although the activities of the 
proposed restoration took their Lordships to 
Madrid and Eome and Berlin and St. Peters- 
burg. 

The younger brother, James, was made a 
Field Marshal by Catherine of Eussia, and 
that amorous termagant making love to him in 
the natural course of proximity, he discreetly 
fled, became Field Marshal for Frederick the 
Great, and not marrying — ^whatever the ro- 
mance of the Swedish lady — he fell at the battle 
of Hochkirch in 1758, and lies buried in the 
Garison Kirche of Berlin. A statue stands in 
the Hochkirch kirche, and in 1868 the King of 
Prussia presented a replica to Peterhead. And 
even so late as 1889, the Kaiser, remembering 



The Circle Round 223 

the Great King's Field Marshal, named one of 
the Silesian war units, the Keith regiment. 

There is no statue to the Lord Marischal — 
Mareschal d'Ecosse, always he signed himself. 
He was the friend of the wittiest and wisest and 
wickedest men of his time, of David Hume, and 
Voltaire, and Eousseau, and Frederick the 
Great. Neither did he marry. Dying at the 
age of ninety-two, he was buried in Potsdam. 
There is no statue to him, there or here. And 
Inverugie lies in low ruins. 

Hither he came, when attaint was lifted, late 
in those tottering years. He drove out to the 
castle, remembering all it had meant, the long 
splendid records of the Earls Marischal, and 
how the King, James III and VIII — Banquo 
saw him also — 

"And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass 
Which shows me many more." 

James, not pretending but claiming, landed 
at Peterhead, lodged at Inverugie, summoned 
the loyal and they came. The Standard was 
lifted for a moment, and then fell. 

Breaking into tears the old Lord Marischal 
realized all, an epoch closed, a Scotland no 
longer requiring a Marischal. He left Inver- 
ugie, even this ruin. 



224 The SpeU of Scotland 

All this Northeast territory, no larger than 
a county in Dakota, bears these scars of the 
past. 

At Elgin there are the ruins of a cathedral; 
ruined, not by the English but by the Wolf of 
Badenoch, because my Lord Bishop had given 
a judgment which did not please my Lord of 
Badenoch. And the Wolf, his fangs drawn, 
was compelled to stand barefooted three days 
before the great west gate. 

At Canossa! Lands and seas and centuries 
divide — but there is slight difference. 

A scant mile or two to the north of Elgin lies 
the ruined Spynie Castle of the Lord Bishop, a 
great place for strength, with massive keep — 
and fallen. ''A mighty fortress is our God.*' 
Cathedrals, castles, bishops and lords, all pass 
away. 

Cawdor 

As we neared one of the last of the North- 
ern stations, we turned to each other and asked, 
''How far is 't called to Forres?" And sud- 
denly all was night and witch dance and omen 
and foretelling. For it is here in the palace that 
Banquo's ghost appeared and foretold all that 
history we have been meeting as we came north- 



The Circle Round 225 

ward. And next is tlie town of Nairn, which 
has become something of a city since Boswell 
found it ''a miserable place"; it is still long 
and narrow, stretching to the sea with its fisher- 
folk cottages and bonneted women like the 
fisher wives of Brittany; and stretching to the 
Highlands at the other end, as King James 
said. 
It was here that Wordsworth heard 

"Yon solitary Highland lass, 
Reaping and singing by herself; . . . 
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow 
For old unhappy far-off things, 
And battles long ago. . . . 
The music in my heart I bore 
Long after it was heard no more." 

But one leaves the train with a curious feel- 
ing. Of course one may be a little tired. Arm 
chair travel and arm chair tragedy have their 
advantages. But — Nairn is the nearest point to 
the blasted heath. 

'Where's the place? 
Upon the heath, 
There to meet Macbeth." 

It is not entirely necessary that one should 
make Nairn and walk out to The Heath. Any 
of these northern silent Scottish blasted heaths 
will serve. It is as though the witches had made 



226 The Spell of Scotland 

their mysterious incantations anywhere, every- 
where. And if Shakespeare was in Scotland 
in 1589 — as I like to think he was — it is doubt- 
ful if he saw The Heath. Johnson told Han- 
nah More, so she reports, that when he and 
Boswell stopped for a night at a spot where 
the Weird Sisters appeared to Macbeth, they 
could not sleep the night for thinking of it. 
Next day they found it was not The Heath. 
This one is, in all faith, apocryphal. Still, if 
you come hither toward evening, when 

"Good things of day begin to droop and drowse" 

it is fearsome enough. Such heaths demand 
their legend. 

"The thane of Cawdor lives 
A prosperous gentleman," 

Not so prosperous now as when he lived in 
the life. Shakespeare took liberties with the 
Thane. He immortalized him into Macbeth! 
And Cawdor Castle, out from Nairn a few 
paces on the burn of Cawdor, might have been 
the very home of Macbeth. It is pleasant, flow- 
ery, lovely. But also, it is stern and looks like 
a castle for tragedy. But not for mystery. I 
did not hear a bird of prey, as some travelers 
report — 



The Circle Round 227 

"The raven himself is hoarse 
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 
Under my battlements." 

There are iron girded doors and secret apart- 
ments; not for Macbeth, but for Lovat. This 
Lord of the Last Eising lived secretly for many 
months in Cawdor while the Prince was moving 
restlessly to and fro in the Islands. But the 
Prince was only twenty-five, and Lord Lovat 
was over eighty. I like to think he was as 
young and keen to adventure as the Prince. 
And I do not like to think of that beheading in 
the Tower — 

"I must become a borrower of the nigbt." 



Inverness 

The four chief cities of Scotland are ar- 
ranged like a diamond for excursion and for 
history. Always Scotland, unlike Gaul, has 
been divided into four parts. Places of pil- 
grimage were Scone, Dundee, Paisley, Melrose. 
Places for the quartering of Montrose were 
Glasgow, Perth, Aberdeen, Stirling. And now 
four places are rivals; in trade somewhat, but 
Glasgow leads in beauty, but Edinburgh, after 
all, is unique in dignity, but Aberdeen is un- 



228 The Spell of Scotland 

bending; in the picturesque there remains In- 
verness. 

The city deserves its honours. (William 
Black has painted it in "Wild Eelin.") It has 
a life of its own. For when I first came to 
Inverness there was a cattle fair on, and sheep 
from all over the kingdom, from Shropshire 
and from the Cheviots, came to be judged in 
Inverness ; and men came with them who looked 
very modern and capable and worldly and com- 
mercial. It was all like a county fair of Iowa, 
only more dignified, with no touch of sideshow. 
And, of course, there is the Highland gather- 
ing in September, which has become too much 
like the sideshow, too much a show, to attract 
the groundlings, and not a gathering of the 
clans. Still — if one must take Scotland in a 
gulp — this is a very good chance at Highland 
colour and sound and remnants of valour. 

The town itself is full of pictures. It does 
not announce itself. There is a close-built part, 
looking like a French provincial town, with 
gabled houses, and down on the banks of the 
Ness the women spread their clothes to dry as 
they do on a French river bank. There is a 
new cathedral, very new, with an angel at the 
font we remembered William Winter had liked, 
so we paid it respectful attention. There is a 



The Circle Round 229 

park on the Ness to the west, where many 
islands and many bridges form a spot of beauty. 

And there is Tomnahurich — The Hill of the 
Fairies — a sudden steep hill-mound, where In- 
verness carries its dead — like the Indians who 
carried them to Indian mounds high above the 
rivers of the American West. The dark yews 
make it even more solemn; one wonders if the 
fairies dare play in these shades. But it is a 
sweetly solemn place, and we decided to care 
not what Invernessians lay buried here if we 
might sit on its convenient park benches and 
look at far rolling Scotland and think of fairies 
and of Thomas the Rimer, who, it seems, 
came hither all the way from Ercildoune from 
Melrose to heap this mound for his burial ! The 
errant Scots! 

There remains no stone of Macbeth 's Castle 
to which the gentle Duncan came — "And when 
goes hence?" The county buildings — and a 
jail! — stand on its site, a most modern pile. 
Malcolm razed that castle after he had returned 
from England, and after Birnam wood had 
come to Dunsinane. It was builded again; In- 
verness was a vantage point. Perhaps that one 
was burned by the Lord of the Isles who after- 
ward came to repentance and to Holyrood. 
And builded again so that Huntley could defy 



230 The Spell of Scotland 

Mary, and she could take the castle and order 
it razed. And builded again so that Oromwell 
could destroy it. And builded again as one of 
the five fortresses whereby he sought to hold 
Scotland ''Protected." And destroyed at the 
Eestoration which sought to destroy all the 
Protectorate had built. But builded again so 
it might be destroyed by Prince Charles Ed- 
ward. No, I scarce think there is even the dust 
of the castle of Macbeth left in Inverness, or 
incorporated into modern Fort George. The 
''knock, knock, knock," which the porter heard 
at the gate, has battered down a score of omi- 
nous strongholds. 
But still 

"The castle hath a pleasant seat ; the air 
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself 
Unto our gentle senses." 

For all the north of Scotland, away from the 
east winds, is pleasant and lovely, with the mean 
climate that of London, and possible in winter 
and summer. 

In the grounds there stands a statue of Flora 
Macdonald looking out to the West, and carry- 
ing the legend — 

"On hills that are by right his ain 
He roams a lanely stranger." 



The Circle Round 231 

Could legend be better chosen to compress 
and carry all that story of loyalty and courage 
and devotion? 

And so we moved out to Culloden. 

It was on a gray wind-swept afternoon that 
we made our pilgrimage. There was no sense 
of rain. It was a hard sky. It spread leaden 
to the world. 

We chose to walk the six mile stretch. Not 
with comfort or any show of splendour, not 
even with a one-horse carriage, would we ap- 
proach Culloden. 

The road leads over lonely Drumossie moor 
through a plantation of firs, to a wild and naked 
spot — ^where all that was Scotland and nothing 
else was burned out of the world by the wither- 
ing fire of Cumberland, and the remnant that 
would not save itself but fought to the last was 
cut to pieces by his order. 

I do not suppose that even on a hot sweet 
afternoon could any one with a drop of Scotch 
blood come hither and not feel in his face the 
rain and sleet of that seventeenth of April day, 
1746. If one comes on that day the cairn is 
hung with flowers, white roses of course, for 
there are still Jacobites left in the world who 
have given to no other king their allegiance. 
''Pretender!" cried Lady Strange to one who 



232 The Spell of Scotland 

had mis-spoken in her presence, '^ Pretender 
and be dawmned to ye ! " 

No, it was not the Pass of Thermopylae, 
nor a Pickett's charge. Nor was it even 
war. 

Nevertheless it was one of the brave moments 
in human history. If hopeless and even mean- 
ingless, does not bravery give it meaning! 
The Highlanders — they were the last Jacobites 
left, as the army of the Butcher, Cumberland, 
George Second's fat son swept northward and 
stopped for their larder to be well-filled before 
they went on — had had only a biscuit, the day 
before ! They were five thousand to the English 
ten thousand. 

At eleven in the morning the Highlanders 
moved forward, the pipers playing brave music, 
and they recked not that the English had the 
chosen ground; theirs was not even a forlorn 
hope. Not if the Macdonalds, sulky because 
they were on the left when since Bannockburn 
they had been on the right, had fired a shot 
would the end have been different. 

On the battlefield, looking at these mounds, 
the long trench of the dead, one realizes that 
Scotland lies buried here. M 'Gillivray, M 'Lean, 
M'Laugblin, Cameron, Mackintosh, Stuart of 
Appin — so many brave names. 



The Circle Round 233 

"The lovely lass of Inverness, 

Nae joy nor pleasure can she see, 
For e'en and morn she cries, alas! 
And ay the saut tear blin's her e'e^= 

"Drumossie muir, Drumossie day! 
A waefu' day it was to me! 
For there I lost my father dear, 
My father dear, and brothers three. 

''Their winding sheet the bluidy clay — 
Their graves are growing green to see; 
And by them lies the dearest lad 
That ever blest a woman's e'e. 

"Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord! 
A bluidy man I trow thou be; 
For mony a heart thou hast made sair 
That ne'er did wrong to them or thee." 

The small remnant that was left, and was not 
butchered by Cumberland, fled to the West. 
Sometimes one could wish Prince Charles had 
died at Culloden! and yet one would not spare 
the wanderings, or Flora Macdonald. Thou- 
sands of the men fled to America; thousands 
of Scots in America to-day can say, ''My great 
grandfather fought at Culloden." Hundreds 
of Scots to-day are sent "home" from America 
to be educated. I have met in the magnificent 
Highlands of Montana, Scotchmen, true High- 
landers, who had been sent to Edinburgh uni- 
versity that they might be Scots, even though 



234 The Spell of Scotland 

they carried '^American" blood in their veins. 

When Boswell and Johnson came here in 
1773, twenty-seven years after the Forty Five, 
they found that many of the Highlanders were 
going to America, leaving the lairds and the 
land. One M 'Queen of Glenmorison was about 
to go. 

*'Dr. Johnson said he wished M 'Queen laird 
of Glenmorison, and the laird to go to Amer- 
ica. M 'Queen very generously answered he 
should be sorry for it; for the laird could not 
shift for himself in America as he could do." 

Small wonder that Prince Charles, knowing 
of this exodus, and believing life still held for 
him its chances, its glories, away from Eome 
and even if he was fifty-five, looked longingly 
over the sea, in 1776, thinking that he might 
lead these rebellious colonists, so many of them 
of his rebellious people, and reestablish the 
House of Stewart in the New World. Surely 
Burr, coming with Blennerhasset, thirty years 
after, had something of the Stewart in him. 



The Orkneys 

Scotland is divided by a deep geologic cleft. 
Glenmore, the Great Glen, runs southwesterly 



The Circle Round 235 

from Inverness to Fort William and Oban, cut- 
ting the country into two parts. One is Scot- 
land ; the other is the "West, the Highlands and 
the Islands. One is known, the other unknown. 
One has been prosperous, royal, noble; the 
other has been wild, independent, chief and 
clans holding together. To-day, if the East is 
strangely quiet, the West is strangely silent. 

In the East you know things have happened ; 
remnants remain, ruined castles testify; in the 
West it is as though they had not happened, 
those far historic things; castles are heaps of 
blackened or crumbled stone ; or, if they stand, 
they stand like prehistoric remnants, and the 
clachans are emptied; the Eisings, the migra- 
tions, the evictions, the extensions of deer for- 
ests and sheep pastures and grouse preserves, 
the poverty, yes, and the wandering spirit of 
the people leading them ever afar — where al- 
ways they are Scottish down to the last drop, 
always looking toward Home, but ever leaving 
it empty of their presence. 

It is a stranger land, though so lovingly fa- 
miliar, than any I have ever been in. I have 
been in valleys of the Eockies which were not 
so lonely as glens in Scotland. When Hood 
wrote his sonnet on "Silence," beginning 

"There is a silence where hath been no sound," 



236 The Spell of Scotland 

He went on to a correction — 
"But in the antique palaces where man hath been." 

He missed the note of glens and valleys 
where man has been and is not. 

From the Great Glen, a series of lochs lying 
in a geologic "fault," and connected more than 
a century ago by a series of locks, excursion 
may be had into remote places, so very remote 
even if they lie but a half dozen miles in the 
backward; the farther ones, to the Orkneys, to 
John o' Groat's, to Skye, the island of mist and 
of Prince Charlie and Dr. Johnson and Fiona 
McLeod, and vast numbers of places known to 
those who seek beauty only. 

Three forts were built in the rebellious Sev- 
enteen Hundreds to hold this far country. The 
forts rather betray history. And they form 
convenient places of departure for those who 
would conquer the Highlands and the Islands 
for themselves. 

Fort George, near Inverness, is still used as 
a depot for military stores and for soldiers. 
Fort Augustus has been surrendered to the 
Benedictines who are gradually developing 
here a great monastery which in these silences 
should rival the monasteries of old — if that may 
be. Fort William, most strategic of all, is also 



The Circle Round 237 

strategic for traveler's descent. Thus is the 
iron hand that succeeded the bloody hand at 
CuUoden become rust. 

To the men of old the Orkneys seemed at the 
back of beyond and a little farther. Yet, I 
cannot think how it has reduced the distance 
to a comprehensible length if farther ends of 
the world and endless waters have been 
reached; distance is three parts imagina- 
tion in any event. As a man thinketh so is dis- 
tance. 

The run up the coast to Scrabster, the port of 
Thurso, is very much on the coast, with wild 
barren land on one side, and wild waste water 
on the other ; with here and there a resting-place 
for the eye or mind, like Skibo Castle for our 
American Laird of Skibo, Dunrobin Castle for 
the magnificent Sutherlands, and on a branch 
line leading out to the sea the house of John 
o 'Groat, perhaps the best known citizen above 
Land's End. 

From Scrabster the Old Man of Hoy lifts his 
hoary head over the seas, and invites to Ultima 
Thule, if this be Ultima Thule. And I suppose 
that ever since Agricola came up this way the 
Old Man has sent forth his invitation. The Ro- 
mans did not answer it, although Tacitus wrote 
about it ; and it was left for much later folk to 



238 The Spell of Scotland 

dispute the Picts and take the islands for them- 
selves. 

An archipelago of fifty-six islands lies scat- 
tered over the water, with only half of them in- 
habited, but not all the rest habitable; if, like 
Sancho Panza, you are looking for an island, 
you will not find the isle of heart's desire here. 
The scant inhabited twenty odd are not over 
filled with population ; these islands are not hos- 
pitable to large numbers, not even of their own. 
They came to us through Margaret of Denmark, 
queen to James III, and were confirmed when 
Anne of Denmark came to be queen to James 
VI. 

The sail over the Pentland Firth may be 
taken on a still day when the historic waters, as 
vexed as those of the Bermoothes, lie like glass. 
The rage of water, of any water, is not the fre- 
quent mood; but always it is the memorable. 
Blue above and blue below was the day of our 
going, twenty miles past high ''continental" 
shores, like Dunnet 's head, and between the out- 
liers of the Orcadian group, at the end of a sum- 
mer day that never ends in this North. 

Yet I cannot think how I should ever again 
approach ''Mainland" and the port of Kirkwall 
with such indifference to everything except the 
exquisite cool softness of this Northern air of 



The Circle Round 239 

mid-summer, with an indolent interest in the 
land ahead, hardly quickened into active inter- 
est which is the traveler's right, when we ap- 
proached Scapa in the twilight. 

I did remember that the Vikings were once 
here as kings. And when King Haakon of Nor- 
way was returning from the defeat at Largs in 
the west where his fleet suffered the blow re- 
peated later against the Spanish armada, one 
ship was sucked down into a whirlpool near 
Stroma. And Haakon died here of a broken 
heart. All these seemed like old, far-off things 
that are not unhappy. Yet there was a sug- 
gestion of fate in the place; perhaps there al- 
ways is in a Northern twilight. To approach 
Kirkwall after this, will always be to remember 
the Hampshire, going to its death in a water 
more dangerous than that of whirling Stroma, 
and Lord Kitchener going with it. 

Kirkwall is a pleasant old town; or was, till 
war made it busy and new. It lies inland a 
mile or two across the isthmus, but no doubt 
stretching actively down to the south pier at 
Scapa. during the years of the great war, when 
all the British fleet hovered about. 

The town is gray, like all Scottish towns ; na- 
ture does these things with perfect taste. And, 
in the midst, man has builded for his worship 



240 The Spell of Scotland 

a church of red sandstone, the Cathedral of St. 
Magnus, older and in better condition than 
churches of Scotland more exposed to the 
change of faith; with a long dim interior that 
speaks the North, with massive Norman arches ; 
one wonders how the reformed faith can con- 
duct itself in this dim religious light. 

But the Earl's Palace remains a thing of 
beauty. Earl Patrick builded it, the son of 
Eobert who was half brother to Mary. If the 
palace had been built in Mary's day I should, 
in truth, have lamented that she did not come 
hither after the escape from Loch Leven, in- 
stead of going to defeat at Langside. Mary 
was valiant, and the stern North was, after all, 
in her blood. 

But Patrick as "jarl" came a generation 
later, and he taxed the islands mercilessly to 
build this very beautiful palace. The roof is 
gone, but the beauty remains, oriel windows, 
fireplaces, and towers and turrets. No doubt 
when ''the wind is blowing in turret and tree," 
Patrick 's palace can be ruined enough. But on 
a day when the blue sky is sufficient vaulting, 
the palace is a place to dream in. 

Over at Birsay, twenty miles across the Main- 
land — there are twenty mile stretches in this 
Mainland — there is another palace, built by 



The Circle Round 241 

Eobert, himself, who was, incidentally. Abbot 
of Holyrood as well as Earl of the Orkneys. 
The motto-stone declares — 

"Dominus Robertus Stuartus 
Filius Jaeobi Quinti Rex Scotorum 
Hoe Opus Instruxit," 

*'Eex" said Robert, not ''regis"; perhaps his 
Latin knew no better, but his spirit knew this 
was right. The nominative agreed with Rob- 
ertus, not with Jaeobi. Still, the ruler of the 
Orkneys was a supreme lord at this remove 
from king and counselors. 

Here and there, but only here and there 
through the islands, lies traveler's lure. Motor 
boats make the run for tourist pleasure, and 
many of the "points of interest" can be seen 
from the waters ; particularly the "brochs," the 
cairn-like towers of perhaps Pictish building; 
and the round tower of St. Magnus on Egilsay, 
which must date back very far, perhaps to the 
time when Columba came hither from Ireland 
and converted these people and gave them hints 
of Irish building. 

There are remnants of life earlier than Co- 
lumba, of faith earlier, though we know not the 
faith. The Circle of Bogar, old gray pillar- 
like stones, set in purple heather, are compa- 
rable with Stonehenge and Locmariaqueur. 



242 The SpeU of Scotland 

Scott found them equal ; Scott who had such an 
admirable way of finding in Scotland the equal 
of the world. In **The Pirate" he describes 
these stones, indeed he describes these Orkneys 
in this accurate guide book which is still *'up 
to date." 

To the blood shed and violence of old days 
has succeeded the quiet pursuit of agriculture; 
and instead of the boats that used to sail to the 
New World, H. B. C. boats and those to the 
Plantations, and to Eussia for the Northwest 
Passage, and to the Arctic for the Pole, are the 
quiet boats of the fisherfolk. Except — ^when 
war fleets ride at anchor. 



The Caledonian Canal 

The Great Glen itself is a necessary journey, 
even though no side trips be made. I must be- 
lieve that every one who has ever taken it and 
written account, journeyed down this water- 
way in a Scotch mist ; which, of course, is not a 
mist at all, but something finite and tangi- 
ble. 

I, myself, went my ways that way. And, of 
course, those who had come north the day be- 
fore me, and those who came south the day 



The Circle Round 243 

after, came through magnificent clearness, and 
marvels of marvels, Ben Nevis cleared of mists 
to his very crest and beyond, shining splendid 
and majestic and out-topping all Scotland, 
against the brilliant cloud-swept northern sky! 
Frankly, I am always tempted to be suspicious 
when any one tells me he has traveled the Great 
Glen and seen it all. 

The scenery on both sides is wild, desolate, 
mountainous, a daring of nature. There are 
sheer hillsides where all is revealed; again, 
there are wooded hills where the men of the 
Forty Five might be still lurking. 

Dochfour, Ness, Oich, Lochy, are the names 
of these ''great lakes" that make the chain. 
There is quality to their names, like Superior, 
Huron, Erie, Ontario. But the Scottish chain 
is sixty miles long and can be made from morn- 
ing to evening, with enough of the day left to 
go through Loch Linnhe and so to Oban; as 
one should add, through the St. Lawrence and 
so to Quebec. Yet when one has passed from 
Inverness to Oban the mind is as full, it has 
come through as much contact, nay, more, as in 
the journey from Duluth to Quebec. 

There are ruined castles by the way. Urqu- 
hart, looking very picturesque, especially if the 
mist is but half come down over the world and 



244 The Spell of Scotland 

the purple of the distances is of that deep royal 
purple so characteristic of the water and moun- 
tain distances of this wild west country. Yet 
the sunny distances are as much a marvel of 
colour in their pale blue that has so much in- 
tensity, so much real vivacity. Purple one has 
learned to associate with distance; or, since 
some painter has shown us the truthful trick. 
But blue, this particular Scottish blue, I have 
never seen elsewhere. It is woven of mists and 
sunlight in equal proportions. 

And so, Urquhart in its ruin, standing ro- 
mantically on a fir clad promontory, is most al- 
luring as the boat rounds it on its early way. 
I do not know anything of Urquhart. The name 
rather suggests the middle name carried by a 
once famous actress. Somehow I half believe 
that in that castle Charlotte Corday may have 
stabbed Marat. But then, facetious and unro- 
mantic, I wonder at the baths in Urquhart in 
the old days when skene dhus served in the 
place of daggers. 

There are other romantic lures in the names 
which seem to have dropped so carelessly any- 
where. Inverarigaig — which sounds more mu- 
sical than it looks on the page — stands at the 
head of the pass through which The Prince 
came after that day at CuUoden on his way to 



The Circle Round 245 

the West as wanderer. Far down the stretch 
of water rises Mealfourvournie, a rounded 
naked hill overlooking the ravine where once 
the church of Cilles Christ stood ; and once, full 
of Mackenzies, was set on fire by the Macdon- 
alds, and all the Mackenzies burned. The act 
is not singular among the clans. McLeod of 
Dare gives it to the Macdonalds and McLeods. 
And so one comes to believe the story of a trav- 
eler coming on a Highland cottage and asking 
if there were any Christians within, got 
back the reply, — "no, we're all Macdonalds." 
Surely Saint Columba was needed in later cen- 
turies than the Sixth. 

The Falls of Foyers are across the lake, sur- 
rendered now to aluminum works. And yet 
Burns wrote of them 

"Among the heathery hills and rugged woods 
The roaring Foyers pours his moving floods." 

Christopher North wrote a better, a prose 
poem, which sounds somewhat curiously in 
American ears. "What a world of waters now 
comes tumbling into the abyss! Niagara! hast 
thou a fiercer roar? Listen — and you think 
there are momentary pauses of thunder, filled 
up with goblin groans ! All the military music- 
bands of the army of Britain would here be 



246 The Spell of Scotland 

dumb as mutes — Trumpet, Cymbal and tbe 
Great Drum!" 

Fort Augustus closes the end of the loch, and 
here the Benedictines, black-robed, move in 
somber file where once the red-coated soldiers 
marched. 

Five locks raise the steamer fifty feet, into 
the Highlands. And while the boat is waiting 
the rise, here, as at any of the locks, there is 
entertainment. Fellow travelers get out to 
stretch their legs, and that is amusing enough, 
tolerantly considered. There are tea houses at 
every lock, many of them, sometimes charm- 
ingly rose-embowered like the houses along the 
Thames. There are pipers who march majesti- 
cally up and down, swinging their sporrans, 
swaying their kilts ; one is almost afraid to give 
a penny. 

And I remember at one of these pausing 
places where the passengers remained on the 
boat, that a very pleasing gentleman who looked 
as George Washington may have looked on gala 
occasions did sing for my entertainment and 
that of my fellow passengers; except one fel- 
low American who expressed her disapproval. 
Perhaps George Washington did not dress so 
gaily; it was just the hat. There was a black 
coat, white breeches, crimson waistcoat, blue 



The Circle Round 247 

stockings, silver buckled shoes, and a cocked 
hat. And this pleasing gentleman sang to a 
tune that was no tune but very cheering, about 
'*the hat me faither wore." And he was so 
doing his best, which was very good indeed, that 
I was forced to get change for a sixpence — it 
cannot be ethical, and certainly is not fun to 
throw a little silver disk when six large coppers 
may be thrown. And the American female fel- 
low passenger said, ''Doesn't it seem as though 
he could get something nearer a man's job*?" 
Yet he was such a pleasant person. And 
they're not common to be met on the highway. 
From Fort Augustus on there are memories 
of the Risings, chiefly of Prince Charlie, in the 
glorious before, in the tragic aftermath. He 
came hither as conqueror, that mere stripling, 
belted and plaided as a Eoyal Stewart, and re- 
took his kingdom. The coat skirts of Johnny 
Cope you can still see in retreat to Inverness, 
if you look well. From Gairlochy the way leads 
to Glenfinnan where he raised his Standard, 
and the Castle of Lochiel, ruined because of 
him. And hither he came, after CuUoden. At 
Fort Augustus the head of Roderick Mackenzie 
was presented to the Butcher as that of Prince 
Charles, and near Gairlochy, and near Lochiel 
— "beware of the day" — is the "cage" of Cluny 



248 The Spell of Scotland 

MacPherson where he harboured during those 
days of red pursuit. And the thirty thousand 
pounds are yet to be paid for betrayal. 

Loch Oich, littlest and highest, with wooded 
islands and heavily wooded shores, larches and 
delicate silver birches, is the exquisite bit of 
the way. And here stands Invergarry Castle, 
which saw Prince Charles when first he came 
gallant from the West and Moidart, and saw 
him when last he came defeated to the West. 

Laggan Avenue runs between Loch Oich and 
Loch Lochy, a narrow waterway with soft fir- 
trees lining the way in a most formal fashion; 
it has a peculiar magic when the mist has shut 
out the rounded hills of the higher background. 

Banavie — to move according to the schedule 
— is at the top of the locks, three miles of them, 
Neptune's staircase, leading down to Fort Wil- 
liam and to the sea. The railroad is the swifter 
way and breaks the journey, and passes the 
ruins of Inverlochy. It is a place to which 
French and Spanish merchants came in far days 
of the Seven Hundreds. But better, a place 
where Montrose won a victory. 

Here took place (1645) the battle between the 
Marquis of Montrose and the Marquis of Ar- 
gyle, and so splendidly that Montrose and 
Charles thought the kingdom was coming back 



The Circle Round 249 

to its own. Montrose had started through the 
Great Glen for Inverness, but hearing that the 
Campbells were massing at Inverlochy, he 
turned back, and gave battle. The victory was 
so tremendously with the royal Montrose that 
he wrote a letter to Charles, then negotiating 
with the parliamentarians, and Charles believed 
so that he broke off the parleying — 

''Give me leave, after I have reduced this 
country, and conquered from Dan to Beersheba, 
to say to Your Majesty, as David's general to 
his master, 'Come thou thyself, lest this coun- 
try be called by my name. ' ' ' 

In five years, the two were both beheaded, 
one at Whitehall in London, the other at the 
Tolbooth in Edinburgh, the Marquis sixteen 
months later than the King. "To carry honour 
and fidelity to the grave." 

At Inverlochy looks down the mountain of 
them all, Ben Nevis, taller than Ben Muich 
Dhui, taller than Snowdon or Helvellyn. And 
from its vantage point, the Observatory Tower, 
one may look over all the territory in many di- 
rections whither one proposes to go ; the routes 
can be planned from this top of Scotland. As 
Sir Archibald Geikie mapped it in his glorified 
geography — 

"While no sound falls upon his ears, save 



250 The Spell of Scotland 

now and then a fitful moaning of the wind 
among the snow-rifts of the dark precipice be- 
low, let him try to analyze some of the chief ele- 
ments of the landscape. It is easy to recognize 
the more marked heights and hollows. To the 
south, away down Loch Linnhe, he can see the 
hills of Mull and the Paps of Jura closing the 
horizon. Westward, Loch Eil seems to lie at 
his feet, winding up into the lonely mountains, 
yet filled twice a day with the tides of the salt 
sea. Far over the hills, beyond the head of the 
loch, he looks across Arisaig, and can see the 
cliffs of the Isle of Eigg and the dark peaks of 
Eum, with the Atlantic gleaming below them. 
Farther to the northwest the blue range of the 
Coolin Hills rises along the skyline, and then, 
sweeping over all the intermediate ground, 
through Arisaig and Knoydart and the Clan- 
ranald country mountain rises after mountain, 
ridge beyond ridge, cut through by dark glens, 
and varied here and there with the sheen of 
lake and tarn. Northward runs the mysterious 
straight line of the Great Glen, with its chain 
of locks. Then to east and south the same bil- 
lowy sea of mountain tops stretches out as far 
as eye can follow it — the hills and glens of 
Lochaber, the wide green strath of Spean, the 
gray corries of Glen Treig and Glen Nevis, the 



The Circle Round 251 



distant sweep of the moors and mountains of 
Brae Lyon and the Perthshire Highlands, the 
spires of Glencoe, and thence again to the blue 
waters of Loch Linnhe." 

This may not be ''the roof of the world,'' but 
it is a very high gable. 




CHAPTEE IX 

THE WESTERN ISLES 

Oban 

[•HEEE is something theatrical about 
Oban, artificial, and therefore among 
Scottish towns Oban is a contrast. It is 
as uncovenanted as — joy ! And it is very beau- 
tiful, *'the gay and generous port of Oban," as 
William Winter calls it, set in its amphitheater 
of high hills, and stretching about its harbour, 
between confining water and hill. An embank- 
ment holds it in, and at twilight the scimeter 
drawn from the scabbard of night flashes with 
light, artificial, but as wonderful at Oban as at 
Monte Carlo. One is content to be, at Oban. 
Quite certainly Oban has centered its share of 
Scottish history and romance, history from the 
time of the Northmen, romance from the time 
resurrected by Scott and continued indige- 
nously by William Black. But in Oban and 
round about Oban, one is quite content to take 

that past as casually as one takes yesterday. 

252 



The Western Isles 253 

It is very interesting, very fascinating; one 
wakes now and then, here and there, to keen re- 
membrance, to a sensitiveness that so much 
beauty could not be only for to-day and of 
to-day, that men must have come hither to claim 
it or dispute possession of it in the beginning 
of time. Of course the Stewarts came out of 
this Island West ! But, either because one has 
made a round circle of Scotland from out of 
romantic Edinburgh, or because one has come 
from practical Glasgow and is about to make 
a round circle of Scotland, Oban has a pecul- 
iarly satisfying and yet undemanding beauty. 

It is set for pageantry; life is always, has 
been always, a procession at Oban. If ever the 
history of Scotland is set forth as pageant — I 
do not know that this has ever been done, but it 
should be — it should be staged at Oban, on the 
esplanade. 

Life moves swiftly through the streets and 
across the waters. For it is a place that all 
the world comes to, in its search for the next 
beautiful place. Steamers from the Caledonian 
Canal and Inverness, steamers from the Crinan 
Canal and Glasgow, coaches from the near coun- 
try, railroads from the east and north, bring 
the world to Oban. And from Oban boats move 
out on the Firth of Lome and the Sound of 



254 The Spell of Scotland 

Mull and through the broken waters of the 
Hebrides, out into the unbroken waters of the 
Atlantic. People come and go, come and go. 
It is not that Oban is filled with people. Very 
often the inns are filled and the careless trav- 
eler may seek eagerly if not vainly for a lodg- 
ing for the night, to find his landlady a Camp- 
bell of the Campbells. 

But there is seldom a feeling of too many peo- 
ple in Oban. They come and go, night and 
morning. They do not stay. In the evening 
the esplanade may be filled and the crowd very 
gala; the circle of lights marking the embank- 
ments, steamers lying at their ease after the 
day's work, looking, yes, like pirates, retired 
pirates, rakish, with tapering spars and brave 
red funnels, the soft plash of oars out on the 
bay and the moving lights of the rowboats, with 
perhaps — no quite certainly — a piper, or two or 
three, dressed in tartan, more like the red and 
black of the Campbells in this historic region 
of Argyle, piping up bravely ''The Campbells 
are Coming, yoho, yoho." 

It is lively in the evening, there is always a 
touch of pageantry. Yet Oban is a very good 
place in which to stay and make the little foot 
excursions that penetrate only a few miles into 
the circumurban territory. The most con- 



The Western Isles 255 

strained walker may find rich foot-interest out 
of Oban; nowhere do comfort and beauty and 
story combine in more continuous lure. Easy 
and attainable is Dunolly Castle, much more at- 
tainable than it was in the old days when the 
Lord of the Isles made his permanent seat here, 
and defied the world and the king ; more attain- 
able now than when Scott came this way seek- 
ing ''copy" and "colour" and declaring ''noth- 
ing can be more beautifully wild than Dunolly. ' ' 
To-day Dunolly is beautiful, but scarcely 
wildly beautiful; that is, in comparison with 
other wild castles of this wild West ; and very 
attainable, the walk being provided with seats 
all the way, casual "rest and be thankfuls," of 
the municipal corporation. 

But beyond Dunolly, four miles of good high- 
way, with Loch Linnhe breaking magnificently 
on the eye, and Loch Etive reaching off end- 
lessly into the deep purple, is Dunstaffnage, 
which, before Stirling, or Perth, or Edinburgh, 
was capital of Scotland and the place of des- 
tiny. Very redoutable it sits on its high crag, 
as picturesque a castle as there is in the world 
— and we are in a land of castles picturesquely 
set. The walls above the waters lift themselves 
in lofty height, and promise to remain, with 
their great thickness presented to the consum- 



256 The Spell of Scotland 

ing world. It is still towered for strength and 
scope, and looks its part of royal residence. 
Here was found the Stone of Destiny — after 
Jacob or another had carried this Jacobite 
sleeping pillow hither from Palestine. Ken- 
neth McAlpine, somewhat sacrilegiously, car- 
ried the Stone away to Perth. And Edward 
sacrilegiously carried it down to Westminster, 
where George V sat on it, in 1911, or nearly on 
it, so as to prove his destined right. 

Bruce took the castle from the Lord of Lome, 
at what time he was taking all the castles of 
Scotland. And even The Bruce in his busy 
days of castle-storming, must have paused in 
this height, at these bastions, to look over this 
w^estern world and decide that it was good and 
should be added to his Scottish world. Across 
Loch Linnhe he could see the bens of Morven 
and of Appin, and up Loch Etive, Ben Crua- 
chan — even as you and I. The Highlands and 
the Islands are still primitive, man dwindles 
here, and the world becomes what it was before 
the Sixth Day. 

But The Bruce did not see these brass can- 
non from a wreck of the Armada, The Bruce 
lived too far before that great day to see the 
coast "strewn with the ruined dream of Spain." 
And he was too early for the ancient ruined 



The Western Isles 257 

Gothic chapel of much austere beauty which 
stands near. 

It is from Pulpit Hill that Oban gives the best 
view of all the lyric lay of this water and land 
world ; on a clear day when the wind is from the 
west, when sunshine has been drenching the 
world, and when the sun is about to sink behind 
Ben More. Pulpit Hill is a wooded steep bluff 
to the east of Oban, at its foot parklike drives 
and forest-embowered cottages with their win- 
dows open to the sea, with rich roses filling the 
air and flaunting fuchias filling the eye. It is 
an easy climb, even after a day of Scotch-see- 
ing in the backward of the land. 

Here one may sit and meditate on the life 
and character of David McCrae, to whom the 
pulpit is dedicated. Or one may look over the 
land and "soothly swear was never yet a scene 
so fair." Or, to borrow again from that same 
Scottish scene painter, and another scene — 
' ' One burnished sheet of living gold. ' ' 

The eye runs far out over the world, across 
the Bay of Oban, across the Island of Kerrera, 
across the Island of Mull set against the late 
sky, and over to Lismore which lies shining and 
tender against the deepening purple back- 
ground of Morven. The sun casts slant rays 
across the land and across the bay, bathing the 



258 The Spell of Scotland 

far land in tender lilac, the sea in steely blue, 
while Kerrera lies in patches of dark and light, 
a farmhouse sharp against a rose mist that rises 
in shallow places and quickly fades, leaving all 
the world purple in hue. Shepherd lads and 
shepherd dogs may be seen at this last moment 
preparing to watch the flocks by night, and 
long horned shaggy cattle browse at peace in 
the fading light. Flocks of birds fly over, star- 
lings in scattered black patches, sea swallows 
poising for prey, and sea gulls resting on the 
wave after a weary day. Everything is at 
peace. 

Two longer excursions one must make from 
Oban; to Loch Awe, to Glencoe. Each is pos- 
sible in a day, and yet a night in Glencoe is 
almost imperative if one would be played upon 
by its full tragic compass; and a lifetime of 
summers would not exhaust Loch Awe. 

The Loch I would visit; because of its 
beauty; and because of Kilchurn Castle, which 
is picturesque in fact as well as in picture, on 
its densely wooded island with its broken out- 
line lying against the farther mountain; be- 
cause of Ardchonnel Castle, ivy covered, and 
"it's a far cry to Loch Awe"; because of 
Fraoch-Eilean (isle of heather) which is the 
island of Ossian's Hesperides; and because. 



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The Western Isles 259 

capitally because, Innishail is the island where 
Philip Gilbert Hamerton established his camp 
through so many summers and through a num- 
ber of Scottish winters. 

One must belong, oh, quite to '* another gen- 
eration," to admit any debt of instruction or 
pleasure to Philip Gilbert Hamerton. I do not 
think that this generation knows him, hardly as 
a name. But when I was young, collegiately 
young, Hamerton was an authority on life and 
art, and a preceptor of beauty. And, if one 
read ''The Intellectual Life," then, of course, 
one read the rest of him. And so, one came to 
Loch Awe before one came to Loch Awe. 

To the lake I went quite shamelessly on train. 
But repenting half way, over-awed by Ben 
Cruachan, as who should not be, I left the train 
at the "platform" and won the memory on foot. 
The mountain looks as high and as mighty as a 
Eocky, and the white foaming threads of falls, 
hundreds of feet high, dashed down the sides 
in a true "Eocky" splendour; like those on 
the Cut bank or the Piegan trails in Glacier 
Park, yet not quite so high. I did not climb 
Ben Cruachan to look on the Atlantic — but I 
have not made my last journey to Scotland. On 
foot and alone, I threaded "the dark pass of 
Brandir," and felt in my blood and bone that 



260 The Spell of Scotland 

something in me ancestral had been there be- 
fore. Perhaps we inherit where we hero-wor- 
ship. In any event, Sir William Wallace went 
through this defile in 1300, and King Eobert 
Bruce in 1310, with his faithful friend Sir 
James Douglass, fighting John of Lorn (the 
dead are still heaped beneath these gray 
cairns), and going on to take DunstafPnage. 
Sir Walter Scott came here when he sought en- 
viron for ' ' The Highland Widow. ' ' 

On one side is the sheer cliff which guards 
the foot of Ben Cruachan. On the other the 
rapid awesome dash of the Eiver Awe. ''You 
will not find a scene more impressive than the 
Brandir Pass, where the black narrowing water 
moves noiselessly at midnight between its bar- 
ren precipices, or ripples against them when the 
wind wails through its gates of war. ' ' 

In the Loch lies the island of Innishail, still 
green, and not less solitary than when Hamer- 
ton entertained travelers, unaware of his 
identity. It still carries old gravestones, for 
islands in the far days were the only safe 
places, safe for the dead as for the living; war 
and ravage would pass them by. Throughout 
this western land you will find island grave- 
yards, and the procession of quiet boats car- 
rying the dead to their rest must have been 



The Western Isles 261 

a better expression than can be had by land. 

From here one sees Ben Cruachan to ad- 
vantage, even as one saw it in 1859 with Hamer- 
ton. 

''At this moment the picture is perfect. The 
sky has become an exquisite pearly green, full 
of gradations. There is only one lonely cloud, 
and that has come exactly where it ought. It 
has risen just beyond the summit of Cruachan 
and pauses there like a golden disk behind a 
saint's white head. But this cloud is rose- 
colour, with a swift gradation to dark purple- 
gray. Its under edge is sharply smoothed into 
a clearly-cut curve by the wind ; the upper edge 
floats and melts away gradually in the pale 
green air. The cloud is shaped rather like a 
dolphin with its tail hidden behind the hill. 
The sunlight on all the hill, but especially to- 
wards the summit, has turned from mere warm 
light to a delicate, definite rose-colour; the 
shadows are more intensely azure, the sky of a 
deeper green. The lake, which is perfectly 
calm, reflects and reverberates all this magnifi- 
cence. The islands, however, are below the 
level of the sunshine, and lie dark and cold, the 
deep green Scotch firs on the Black Isles tell- 
ing strongly against the snows of Cruachan. ' ' 

It was even as Hamerton had told me so long 



262 The Spell of Scotland 

ago, a trifle different in July from what lie saw 
it in December, but equal in magnificence, and 
tbe outlines had not changed in a half-century. 

And so I did not hesitate to go with Hamer- 
ton to Glencoe, lovely and lonely and most ter- 
rible glen. There is such a thing as being 
haunted, the dead do cry for revenge, the evil 
that men do does live after them. 

It is a wide valley, yet closed in by great 
granite precipices, for safe guarding against be- 
trayal. The first section of the strath is calm 
enough, human, green, habitable, with Loch 
Leven, a branch of Loch Etive, sparkling in the 
sun. The second wide opening is terrible as 
massacre, not green, very stern, and wild as 
Scottish nature, human or not, can become. 
Even the little clachan of the Macdonalds seems 
not to welcome the world except on suspicion. 
And that murder, that assassination (February 
14, 1692) when William was king — William 
who might have been ' * great ' ' except for Boyne 
and Glencoe — still fills the memory. 

Hamerton painted the picture — *'In the vast- 
ness of the valley, over the dim, silver stream 
that flowed away into its infinite distance, 
brooded a heavy cloud, stained with a crimson 
hue, as if the innocent blood shed there rose 
from the earth even yet, to bear witness against 



The Western Isles 263 

the assassins who gave the name of Glen Coe 
such power over the hearts of men. For so 
long as history shall be read, and treachery- 
hated, that name, Glen Coe, shall thrill man- 
kind with undiminished horror ! The story is a 
century old now (1859). The human race has 
heard it talked of for over a hundred years. 
But the tale is as fresh in its fearful interest 
as the latest murder in the newspapers. ' ' 

Yet, a half century still later, I have heard 
those who declared Glencoe lovely and not ter- 
rible. No doubt the generation does not read 
history and does not feel story. 

We did not go on to the King's House, built 
in the days of King William, when roads were 
being driven through the Highlands in order 
that they might be held to a doubtful Stewart 
sovereignty. For we had read how Hamerton 
thought it more than enough to drink a glass 
here, and we doubted not he had read of the 
trials of Dorothy Wordsworth, sheets that must 
be dried for hours before the beds could be 
made, the one egg for breakfast, and — could we 
have found that china cup that Dorothy for- 
got ? Eather, we chose to return down the lake 
side for another look at the red roofs of the 
home of Lord Strathcona, that wizard of the 
nineteenth century, who had left Scotland with 



264 The Spell of Scotland 

only his wits and returned from America with 
his millions and a title. 



lona 

There is no pilgrimage which can be taken to 
any shrine excelling pilgrimage to lona. And 
all the pilgrim way is lined with memory and 
paved with beauty. 

On almost every promontory stand ruined 
castles, not so frequent as the watch towers on 
the Mediterranean heights, and therefore not so 
monotonous. One knows that each of these, as 
of those, has had its history, and here one pon- 
ders that history, perhaps tries to remember it, 
or, tries to evoke it. Dunolly which we visited 
in the day's drift from Oban stood up on the 
right with the city still in view. But it is when 
the Firth opens into the Sound that the glory 
of the water-world of the West comes on you. 

The Sound of Mull is, so Sir Walter has said, 
"the most striking water of the Hebrides." It 
is very lovely in this shell-pink light of early 
morning, it could not have looked lovelier when 
Sir Walter estimated it. The hills begin to 
stand boldly forth, for the gray mists of the 
morning are rising. It is to be a fine day. 



The Western Isles 265 

which here because of its exception means a 
brilliant sun-stricken day, and all things clear 
as geography. But, at least once, one should 
see things one wishes always to keep as mate- 
rial for remembrance and for imagination, not 
in the mist dimly, but face to face like this. Or, 
as the Maid of Lorn in Ardtornish, when she 
was led 

"To where a turret's airy head 
Slender and steep and battled round, 
O'erlooked, dark Mull! thy mighty Sound. 
Where thwarting tides, with mingled roar 
Part thy swarth hills from Morven's shore." 

On the left of Mull stands the grim Castle of 
Duart on its high rock, on the right on Morven 
the Castle of Ardtornish, and Aros a little 
farther on, and Kinlochalive at the top of the 
bay of the Loch — mighty were these lords of 
the islands, and most mighty the Lord of the 
Isles. 

Perhaps — it has been suggested — Sir Walter 
overstated the might of the Lord, the grandeur 
of the islands, the splendour of those thirteenth 
century days. It depends on what light one 
views them in. 

Tobermory is the capital of Mull, and is a 
place of some resort. Like all these little capi- 
tals it is set in the wilderness world, and what 



266 The Spell of Scotland 

one would like best to do instead of sailing past 
them is to stay with them and go far into the 
backward. Perhaps traversing Mull as did 
McLeod of Dare when he hunted so royally — 
and in such a moonstruck way; or David Bal- 
four when he was shipwrecked and walked 
through Mull ; or the Pennells when they sought 
to walk through and did not take pleasure in it. 
It is the pilgrims who won their goal one 
chooses to remember — not the defeated Pen- 
nells. And here — I am leaving Mull and To- 
bermory behind me, perhaps for always. 

Suddenly one sweeps out into the Atlantic! 
The stretch is wide, oceanic, although far and 
away there are islands., black lines thickening 
here and there the horizon edge. The sea is ex- 
quisitely, deeply blue, like the Mediterranean 
at its best. 

One passes Ardnamurchan point, the most 
westerly point of the mainland of Great Britain, 
* ' Cape of the Great Seas ' ' ; how one loves the 
poetic grandeur, the sufficing bigness of these 
names, and the faith, and the limitations back 
of them; as though there should never be a 
greater world with greater seas and mountains 
in the greater West. To the south the boat 
passes Trehinish isles, black gems lying on the 
sea. 




entrancp: to fingal s cave. 



The Western Isles 267 

Far out on the horizon lie Col and Tiree, low 
clouds in the line. ''Col," I heard the profes- 
sorial people — from Oberlin — speak the name. 
' ' Col ! So that is Col ! ' ' they said to each other, 
"so that is Col off there!" ''Col," I said to 
myself, "so that is Col." And we all became 
related through the great Doctor. 

One is bound to Staffa, incidentally, on the 
way to lona, and for the sake of Mendelssohn. 
Always afterward one is bound to Staffa be- 
cause of itself. If only one could have Staffa 
for one's self. But there are always fellow 
travelers, there is no inn, no habitation here, 
not even a shepherd's shieling, visible from 
the water. There are a few sheep, a shep- 
herd, and so there must be a shieling. To be 
marooned here — ^was it here Stevenson under- 
studied for Bill Gunn, and "cheese, toasted 
mostly"? 

The cave is truly wonderful, a superb cathe- 
dral nave, with dark basaltic columns lifted in 
marvelous regularity, and arches lifting over 
with groining the hand of God. 

"Nature herself it seemed would raise 
A minster to her Maker's praise." 

The broken surfaces of the walls are in mo- 
saic with green sea grasses and gleaming 



268 The Spell of Scotland 

limpets, and the floor is a shifting thing of surg- 
ing waves. The ocean thunders through the 
narrow gate as it has done since the time Staffa 
began, and since Mendelssohn, a mighty organ 
surge, like the '* Overture to Fingal's Cave," 
and yet, more than that. To be here alone, to 
be the shepherd of Staffa, and come to this 
cathedral, with the might and mystery of the 
night about, and the winds and the sea making 
symphony — life will always hold many things 
in possibility, which cannot die! 

From the top of Staffa, if one flees the pas- 
sengers a moment, may be seen the islands lying 
about whose names are romance, Trehinish, and 
Inchkenneth on Mull and Skerry vore, "the 
noblest of all deep sea light," a mere speck on 
the far Atlantic — what vigils the man must have 
in the house of light built by Stevenson's father; 
and on to the far north and Skye; and to the 
near south and lona. 

"Where is Duncan's body? 
Carried to Colme-kill, 
The sacred storehouse of his predecessors, 
And guardian of their bones." 

Very definite was Shakespeare about these 
things. A more modern antiquarian would 
have doubted, and sent us wandering from pil- 
lar to post of royal burial places. But not the 



The Western Isles 269 

man who created what he declared. Icolmkill 
— lona — certainly. 

That such a little island conld have had such 
a large history. It is so small a place, yet a 
beautiful island withal, and with its cathedral, 
now alas, '' restored" and "reformed," and all 
its far sounding memories of Columba. 

He came up from the South as we came down 
from the North, but his voyage was across the 
wide seas to unknown goals ; while we have the 
advantage of having come after him to lona. 
And yet, to Columba, valiant adventuring saint, 
lona nor any other place was unknown goal. 
There was to him but one purpose in life, one 
goal. And he found it everywhere. 

It was a large life and simple, austere but 
with unlimited horizon, that Columba lived here. 
It is a small exquisite life that is lived here 
to-day. Or, perhaps my belief in its proportion 
and perfection came because of contact with a 
certain two persons, man and woman, who had 
taken this life to themselves. While being 
practical in that they sold exquisite wares, in 
silver and gold and brass and bronze, each 
article, large or little, carrying some Ionian in- 
signia, still they must have a very beautiful life, 
ever making things of beauty out of the historic 
heritage of this island. It was a large accumu- 



270 The Spell of Scotland 

lation of jeweled hints they discovered here, in 
the ornamentations of the stones of lona. 
They have used them to very lovely ends. 
And they have lived the life of memories and 
of the keen sea air. 

One may have forty minutes, or day after day 
in lona. And, of course, the reward and the 
intimacy is in proportion. It is a quiet frag- 
ment of land, the little village with its white- 
washed cottages in prim lines, and its simple 
cotters, perhaps a little more sophisticated than 
those of other western islands because of their 
continuing contact with a curious world; and 
yet these men and women and serious children 
live here the year round, and in winter there is 
no world, and the Atlantic thunders on the lit- 
tle land as though one beat of the wave would 
carry all into the abyss, or smashes on the 
rough granite coast of Mull across the strait. 

The western shore of the island is cruel, even 
on a summer day. And if the ''merry men" 
ran their violent ways on the shore of Mull, 
there are other Merry Men just as merry, just 
as lurking. As McLeod of Dare saw it — 

** Could anything have been more beautiful 
than this magnificent scene . . . the wildly 
rushing seas, coming thunderingly on the rocks, 
or springing so high in the air that the snow- 



The Western Isles 271 

white foam showed black against the glare of 
the sky ; the near islands gleaming with a touch 
of brown on their sunward side ; the Dutchman's 
Cap with its long brim and conical center, and 
Lunga also like a cap with a shorter brim and 
a higher peak in front, becoming a trifle blue. 
And then Col and Tiree lying like a pale strip 
on the far horizon ; while far away in the north 
the mountains of Rum and Skye were faint and 
spectral in the haze of sunlight. Then the wild 
coast around, with its splendid masses of gran- 
ite; and its spare grass a brown-green in the 
warm sun, and its bays of silver sand; and its 
sea birds whiter than the clouds that came sail- 
ing over the blue." 

On many of these western islands, and the 
northern, and it is said particularly on the far 
northern Shetlands, there are some dark somber 
faces remaining over from the Armada. The 
sea has never been kind ; it breaks the rocks, it 
breaks men. 

There are low-lying hills, the chief is Dun I, 
there are pasture lands, and still there are fields 
of wheat and clover. Just before he died, Co- 
lumba was carried out to see the men at work 
in the fields. No doubt he lifted his eyes and 
looked around, on his little island, and the great 
sea, and the great world beyond. No doubt he 



272 The Spell of Scotland 

wished he might live longer and labour farther. 
St. Columba who carried the Gospel and his 
gentle Irish gospel from the sixth century of 
Ireland into the far North until it swung round 
and met in Durham and York the Gospel and 
the culture coming up from Eome; and that 
neither so polished nor so Christian. Yes, even 
Columba regretted leaving the world behind 
him, though he was going to the other 
world. 

■ Yes, I am certain he regretted leaving the 
island world behind him. Did he not sing of 
his longing — 

"Delightful would it be to me to be in Uchd Ailiun 

On the pinnacle of a rock, 
That I might often see 

The face of the ocean; 
That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds, 

Source of happiness; 
That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves 

Upon the rocks ; 
At times at work without compulsion — 
That would be delightful; 
At times plucking dulse from the rocks; 

At times fishing." 

Thirteen hundred years ago ; and the song is 
undimmed, and the world has not faded. The 
Port of the Coracle on the far side is still open 
to boats adventuring across pleasant or perilous 



The Western Isles 273 

seas. The very rock on which Columba landed, 
the traveler seeking the subtle transubstantia- 
tion from the past may stand on. And there is 
the White Beach of the Monks, where the com- 
panions of Columba paced to and fro in those 
days and in this lovely land that seems too far 
away to be believed in. 

The entire island is the shrine of the Saint, 
and not only the cathedral of lona. In truth 
this particular church dates from six hundred 
years later than Columba, six hundred years 
backward from us. The crosses that stand in 
the cemetery of St. Oran, St. Martin's and the 
Maclean, the only two left out of nearly four 
hundred, cannot date much farther back than 
this, or than ^'gentle Duncan." There is a long 
line of graves, each with its aged granite slab, 
of the kings, Norwegian and Irish and Scottish, 
of those early centuries. I do not remember 
that I saw the one that speaks of Duncan. But 
I do remember that the carvings were very curi- 
ous and often very fascinating, the ''pattern" 
intricate and intriguing. 

Once the cathedral was a place of magic, an 
unroofed broken shrine, where the winds might 
wander in search of the past, and where the 
moonlight might shine through as lovely a case- 
ment, tracery as exquisite, as at fair Melrose. 



274 The Spell of Scotland 

If the generations coming six hundred years 
after us are to know of St. Columba, and not to 
reproach us for our cooperation with time the 
vandal, these roofs, this protection, must be af- 
forded. Still, the gate is so close locked to-day 
that even Joseph Pennell could not steal in, and 
so closely watched that no black lamb or ram 
or other hobgoblin could affright Miss Gertrude 
White or cause her to cease loving the daring 
McLeod of Dare. 

Yet, if one resolves as did Boswell, to leave 
the close inspection to Dr. Johnson, and "to 
stroll among them at my ease, to take no trouble 
to investigate minutely, and only receive the 
general impression of solemn antiquity," one 
will come upon much that is of particular im- 
pression, like the carvings about and on the 
capitals, with the early grace of the later Ital- 
ians ; quite worth careful preserving. And here 
is the altar, and I doubt not at this very spot — 
church shrines continue in this steadfast Scot- 
land — Columba knelt before the God whose wor- 
ship he had brought over the seas, and was to 
carry still farther over land and seas. There 
may be one shrine in the Christian world more 
sacred. But not more than one. Dr. Johnson 
is still quite right — **The man is little to be 
envied whose patriotism would not gain force 



The Western Isles 275 

upon the plains of Marathon, or whose piety 
would not grow warmer among the ruins of 
lona. ' ' 

The storm did not come, although we waited 
three days for it. Nothing but calm in the 
island of lona, and peace on the deep of the At- 
lantic ; tender dawns, still high noons, twilights 
of soft visible gray that lasted over to the next 
morning; a land of hushed winds and audible 
sounds, the seas lying like glass. 

Not even on a Sunday morning when in a cor- 
acle, or some such smaller boat than one usually 
cares to venture, perhaps a lug, whatever that 
may be, we accompanied the clergyman to the 
mainland of Mull, and watched the stern sad 
faces of these far away folk as they listened to 
a very simple sermon of an old simple story. I 
remembered that at Earraid, Eobert Louis 
Stevenson had been interested in the religious 
services held for the workmen who were cutting 
stone for a lighthouse building by Thomas 
Stevenson. From these people religion will go 
very late, if at all. Surely men and women need 
what Columba brought hither, now as ever. 

And because of David Balfour I walked a 
little way into Mull, which still must look as he 
saw it, for except for the roadway it looked as 
though I were the first who had ever ventured 



276 The Spell of Scotland 

that way since time and these rough granite 
heaps began. 

"Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, 
Say, could that lad be I? 
Merry of soul he sailed on a day 
Over the sea to Skye. 

"Mull was astern. Rum on the port, 
Egg on the starboard bow; 
Glory of youth glowed in his soul : 
Where is that glory now? 

"Give me again all that was there, 
Give me the sun that shone ! 
Give me the eyes, give me the soul. 
Give me the lad that's gone !" 



CHAPTER X 



THE LAKES 




JLL the world goes to the Trossachs. Yet 
there are only two kinds of people who 
should go, and they are as widely sepa- 
rated as the poles; those who are content and 
able to take the Trossachs as a beautiful bit of 
the world, like any lake or mountain country 
which is unsung, and then they will not take it 
but merely look at it ; and those who know the 
Trossachs as theirs. The Trossachs, who can 
repeat it all from — 

"The stag at eve had drunk his fill 
Where danced the moon on Monan's rill, 
And deep his midnight lair had made 
In lone Glenartney's hazel shade. 

On to 

"The chain of gold the king unstrung 
The links o'er Malcolm's neck he flung 
Then gently drew the golden band 
And laid the clasp in Ellen's hand." 

Half knowledge is exasperating to those who 
have whole knowledge; and half love — half 

277 



278 The Spell of Scotland 

love is maddening, should lead to massacre by 
those whose love is all in all. 

I cannot remember when I did not know ' ' The 
Lady of the Lake" — which, of course, is the 
Trossachs. It is as though I knew it when I 
first knew speech, lisped in numbers and the 
numbers came. It was the first grown-up book 
I ever owned, and I own the copy yet. It is not 
a first edition, this my first and only edition. 
I presume that in those far away days when it 
was given to me, ''a Christmas gift" — I always 
chose to receive it from my Scottish grand- 
mother, though she had been dead thirty years 
before I came — I might have had a first edition 
for a song ; but the preciousness of first editions 
had not yet become a fetich. Since then I have 
looked with respect and affection on that im- 
press of ' * 1810. ' ' I have never looked on it with 
longing. So much better, that first edition of 
mine, an ordinary sage-green cloth-bound book, 
with ornamental black and gold title, such as 
the inartistic Eighties sent forth; I do like to 
note that the year of its imprint is the year of 
my possession. It has not even a gilt edge, I 
am pleased to state. The paper is creamy, the 
ink is not always clear. And because it went 
through one fire and flood, the pages have little 
brown ripples, magic marginal notes. There is 



The Lakes 279 



not a penciled margin in the whole volume. 
That, in a book owned by one who always reads 
with a pencil in hand, is beyond understanding ! 
And yet it was many and many a year ago, in 
a kingdom by the sea. Memory was tremen- 
dously active then, not quite the memory of a 
Macaulay, but still one reading, or at least one 
and a half, was sufficient to thrust the rimes 
of these two-edged couplets into unsurrender- 
ing possession. Criticism was in abeyance; 
there is not even a mark among the notes. I 
cannot be certain that I read them. Who reads 
notes at the age of eight? 

I remember how my acquaintance began with 
* * The Lady of the Lake, ' ' even before I read it. 
In those days there was little literature for 
children, and there was prejudice against that 
which was provided. There was especial prej- 
udice in my own household. I think my teacher 
in school may have shared it. If he were an 
adult he would read, ostensibly to us, but for 
himself, something he could tolerate. Yes, it 
was he; an exception in those days, for in the 
public schools men seldom taught in ''the 
grades." 

He must have been a young man, not more 
than nineteen or twenty, waiting to mature in 
his profession. And Scotch, as I think it now; 



280 The Spell of Scotland 

not only because his name was Kennedy, but 
because of his Highland dark eyes and hair, and 
because of certain uncanny skill in mathematics 
— as I thought who had not even a moiety — 
and because, oh, very much because, of the 
splendid tussle he had — tulzie! that's the word 
— a very battle royal to my small terrified fasci- 
nated vision, there on the school-room floor, 
with the two Dempsey boys, who were much 
older than the rest of us ; they must have been 
as old as fourteen! One merited the punish- 
ment and was getting it. The other, with clan 
loyalty, came to his rescue. And the High- 
lander, white to the lips, and eyes black-and- 
fire, handled them both. 

Oh, it was royal understudy to the combat at 
Coilantogle ford — 

"111 fared it then with Roderick Dhu 
When on the field his tarare he threw." 



The Trossachs 

To write a guide to the Trossachs — that has 
been done and done more than once; done with 
much minutiae, with mathematics, with measure- 
ment ; to-day it is possible to follow the stag at 
eve, and all the rest of it, in all its footsteps; 



The Lakes 281 

to follow much more accurately than did even 
Sir Walter; to follow vastly more accurately 
than did James Fitz James. 

For, in the first place, the world is not so 
stupendous a place as it was in the days of 
Fitz James, or of Sir Walter. The Eockies and 
the Andes have been sighted, if not charted, and 
beside them the Grampians look low enough. 
Yet, fortunately, the situation can never be '* be- 
side them." The most remembering traveler 
has crossed the seas and buried his megalo- 
manian American memories, let it be hoped, in 
the depths of the Atlantic. Neither Eockies 
nor Andes carry so far or so rich memories. 
Sir Walter has never projected an imaginary 
Eoderick Dhu or a King errant into any of the 
majesty or loveliness of those empty lakes and 
mountains. I can imagine in what spirit the 
Pennells came to Loch Lomond and declared 
that it "looked like any other lake." Dr. John- 
son was quite right, sir. "Water is the same 
everywhere, ' ' to those who think water is water. 

Of course the traveler should not come upon 
the land by way of Lomond. Fitz James came 
from Stirling. He came to subdue the High- 
lands. They were seething in revolt — for no 
other reason than that Highlanders so long as 
they were Highlanders had to seethe and revolt. 



282 The Spell of Scotland 

And if we would subdue the Highlands or have 

them subdue us, we must follow the silver horn 

of the Knight of Snowdoun when he rode out 

of Stirling; to subdue, yes, and to adventure. 

Yet perhaps it is better to have possessed 

Scotland, en tour, and to go back to Stirling with 

Fitz James, as a captive, but bearing the golden 

ring — 

"Ellen, thy hand — ^the ring is thine, 
Each gxiai-d and usher knows the sign." 

So one leaves Glasgow, the unromantic, 
threading through its miles of prosperity and 
unbeauty, passing Dumbarton where Wallace 
was prisoner, passing the river Leven, which 
ought to interest us, for once its ''pure stream" 
on his own confession laved the ''youthful 
limbs" of Tobias Smollett, until the open coun- 
try is reached and Loch Lomond swims into 
sight. 

"By yon bonnie banks, and by yon bonnie braes 
Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond, 
There me and my true love spent mony happy days. 
On the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomond." 

No, the Pennells might criticize "me and my 
true love." As for us, we mean to be romantic 
and sentimental and unashamed and ungram- 
matical. And spend mony days ; Harry Lauder 
would spell and spend it, "money." 



The Lakes 283 



The lake opens wide and free in the lowland 
country of Balloch. At the left lies Glenfruin, 
the Glen of Wailing, where took place the ter- 
rible clan battle between the MacGregors and 
Colquhouns, where the MacGregors were vic- 
torious. But as Scott wrote, ''the consequences 
of the battle of Glenfruin were very calamitous 
to the family of MacGregor." Sixty widows 
of the Colquhouns rode to Stirling each on a 
white palfrey, a "choir of mourning dames." 
James VI, that most moral monarch, let loose 
his judicious wrath, the very name of the clan 
was proscribed, fire and sword pursued the 
MacGregors. The Highlanders are dauntless. 
There still exist MacGregors and with the Mac- 
Gregor spirit. And who that heard the Glas- 
gow choir sing the superb ''MacGregors Gath- 
ering" — Thain' a Grigalach — but will gather at 
the cry, ' ' The MacGregor is come ! ' ' 

"The moon's on the lake, and the mist's on the brae, 
And the Clan has a name that is nameless by day; 
Then gather, gather, gather, Grigalach! 
Gather, gather, gather. 

"If they rob us of name and pursue us with beagles. 
Give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to the eagles, 
Then vengeance, vengeance, vengeance, Grigalach ! 
Vengeance, vengeance, vengeance. 



284 The Spell of Scotland 

"Through the depths of Loch Katrine the steed shall career, 
O'er the peak of Ben Lomond the galley shall steer, 
Then gather, gather, gather, Grigalaeh ! 
Gather, gather, gather." 

There are twenty-four islands marooned in 
this part of the lake; for according to the old 
legend, one of these was a floating island and 
so to chain one they chained all. The first 
island is Inch Mnrrin, at which I looked with 
due respect, for it is a deer park of the present 
Duke of Montrose. I know not if he is de- 
scended from The Montrose, or from Malcolm 
Graeme and Fair Ellen, but let us believe it ; it 
does not do to smile at the claims of long de- 
scent in this persisting Scotland. The Duke 
lives in Buchanan Castle, near the lake. Also 
he owns Ben Lomond. Also — I read it in 
''More Leaves" of Queen Victoria's Journal — 
''Duke of Montrose to whom half of Loch 
Lomond belongs." 

It was here that Dorothy Wordsworth looked 
and recorded, "It is an outlandish scene; we 
might have believed ourselves in North Amer- 
ica." And so, I knew the Lomond country for 
my own. 

The steep, steep sides of Ben Lomond are in 
view at the top of the Loch, but the ballad may 
well have contented itself with the sides. For 



The Lakes 285 



I know one traveler who wished to be loyal to 
the Ben, and having seen it in 1889, and not seen 
it for the thick Scotch mist, returned again in 
1911, and had her only day of rain in sailing 
across Loch Lomond. The ballad turned into 
a coronach — 

"But the broken heart kens nae second spring 
Though resigned we may be while we're greetin'. 
Ye'll tak the highway and I'll tak the low way." 

It is all MacGregor country, that is to say Eob 
Eoy country. We are bound for Inversnaid, so 
was he. All about Lomond he had his ways, 
Eob Eoy's prison, Eob Eoy's cave, Eob Eoy's 
grave, and all. And though there are other 
claims hereabout, and although Eobert Bruce 
himself preceded Eobert Eoy in the cave, such 
is the power of the Wizard that it is the later 
Eobert one permits to inhabit these places. 

We remembered that Queen Victoria had pre- 
ferred the roads to the steamer. So we left the 
boat at Eowardennan pier. Not to walk the 
pleasant ambling highways, that by some good 
public fortune run near the ''bonny bonny 
banks," and, in spite of the Duke of Montrose, 
make the lake belong to us, to whom, of course, 
it does belong, but to walk to the top of the 
Ben. 

The path, if one keeps the path, and he 



286 The Spell of Scotland 

should, is safe, the gradation easy; an Ameri- 
can is like to smile at the claims of long ascent 
of a mountain which is but 3192 feet from the 
sea to top. But let one wander ever little from 
the path, attempt to make a new and direct de- 
scent, and let one of those mists which hang so 
near a Scotch day actually descend upon the 
top of the Ben — it is not the mildest sensation 
to find one's foot poised just at the edge of a 
precipice. It is not well to defy these three 
thousand feet because one has climbed higher 
heights. Ben Lomond can do its bit. And it 
can furnish a panorama which the taller Ben 
Nevis cannot rival, cannot equal. The Castle 
Eocks of Stirling and of Edinburgh, on a clean 
clear day; nearer^ Ben Ledi and Ben Venue, 
names to thrill a far remembrance ; Ben Crua- 
chan, bringing the Mull country from near re- 
membrance. And farther across, pale but ap- 
parent, the mountains of Ireland. A marvel of 
vision. 

At Inversnaid one is again with Dorothy 
Wordsworth. It was here or hereabouts that 
William dropped the package of lunch in the 
water. So like William ! I wonder Dorothy let 
him carry it. It was here William saw the 
Highland Girl, and wrote those lovely lines of 
her — 



The Lakes 287 

"Now thanks to Heaven! that of its grace 
Hath led me to this lonely place. 
Joy have I had; and going hence 
I bear away my recompense. 
In spots like these it is we prize 
Our memory; feel that she hath eyes. . . . 
For I, methinks, till I grow old, 
As fair before me shall behold, 
As I do now, the cabin small. 
The lake, the bay, the waterfall; 
And thee, the spirit of them all!" 

And now one really begins to thrill. One is 
really going to Loch Katrine, to the Trossachs. 
The road is preferable, five miles of foot-pleas- 
ure, as against the filled coaches with perhaps 
* ' gallant grays, ' ' and certainly fellow travelers 
who quote and misquote the lines. No, it shall 
be on foot, up through the steep glen of Arklet 
water, out on the high open moor where the 
Highland cattle browse, with Ben Voirlich con- 
stantly in view, and Ben Venue coming even to 
meet us; with William and Dorothy Words- 
worth and Coleridge walking beside us all the 
way. (Dorothy always called it ''Ketterine," 
but then, she came hither seven years before 
*'The Lady" was published.) 

The old Highland fort was a perplexity to 
the Wordsworths. William thought it a hos- 
pice like those he had seen in Switzerland, and 
even later when told it was a fort Dorothy did 



288 The Spell of Scotland 

not quite believe. It was built at the time of 
the Fifteen to keep caterans — of which Eob Eoy 
was one — in subjection. And the American 
looks with interest because here, in his youth — 
which was all he ever had in truth — Greneral 
Wolfe, who fell on the Heights of Abraham but 
won Quebec, commanded the fort of this High- 
land height. I could but wonder how the 
French travelers who throng these Scotch high- 
ways feel when they remember this victor over 
Montcalm. Now that they have fought to- 
gether ''somewhere in France," no doubt they 
feel no more keenly than an Englishman at 
Bannockburn. 

There is not too much lure to keep one 's mind 
and one's feet from Loch Katrine. There was 
a piper on the way, tall and kilted in the tartan 
of the MacGregor. (Helen MacGregor, wife 
of Eob Eoy, was born at Loch Arklet, and across 
the hill in Glengyle Eob Eoy was born, con- 
veniently.) The piper piped most valiantly. 
I should like to have set him a ''blawin' " o' the 
pipes with our piper on the Caledonian loch, 
something like the tilt which Alan Breck had 
with Eobinoig, son of Eob Eoy. 

The road drops down to Stronachlachar. 
Through the hill defile one catches the gleam, 
and quickly "the sheet of burnished gold" rolls 



The Lakes 289 

before the eye. It is more splendid than when 
Dorothy Wordsworth viewed it, ' ' the whole lake 
appeared a solitude, neither boat, islands, nor 
houses, no grandeur in the hills, nor any loveli- 
ness on the shores." Poor Dorothy! She 
was hungry and tired, and did not know where 
she should lay her head. Later, next day, at 
the farther end, she loved it, ''the perfection 
of loveliness and beauty." 

As for us, it was early morning, we had 
breakfasted, fate could not harm us, and we 
knew our way. We were approaching it from 
the direction opposite to Majesty, the soft gray 
clouded stillness, early out of the morning 
world. But Scott had seen this picture also — 

"The summer's dawn reflected hue 
To purple changed Loch Katrine blue; 
Mildly and soft the western breeze 
Just kissed the lake, just stirr'd the trees, 
And the pleased lake, like maiden coy 
Trembled but dimpled not for joy; 
The mountain shadows on her breast 
Were neither broken nor at rest; 
In bright uncertainty they lie. 
Like future joys to Fancy's eye. 
The water-lily to the light 
Her chalice rear'd of silver bright; 
The doe awoke and to the lawn 
Begemm'd with dewdrops, led her fawn. 
The gray mist left the mountain side, 
The torrent show'd its glistening pride, 



290 The Spell of Scotland 

Invisible in flecked sky, 

The lark sent down her revelry; 

The blaek-bird and the speckled thrush 

Good morrow gave from brake and bushj 

In answer eoo'd the cushat dove, 

Her notes of peace, and rest, and love." 

Here we hit upon a device to possess Loch 
Katrine, both ''going and coming," to see the 
lake at dawn, simply as beauty, and then to come 
upon it as came Fitz James. With a glass of 
milk for fast-breaking — we had had a substan- 
tial breakfast at Inversnaid, and this glass was 
but for auld lang syne, a pledge of my compan- 
ion to her early memories — we set out for "far 
Loch Ard or Aberf oyle. ' ' 

I think had we known how very modern is 
this way which curves about the west side of 
Katrine we might have shunned it. Certain the 
stag would have done it. He did, you remem- 
ber; refusing to charge upon Ben Venue, and 
thus avoiding the future site of the Water 
Works of the Corporation of the City of Glas- 
gow. Perhaps Glasgow is the best equipped 
municipality in the world. Yet, what city but 
Glasgow would have tapped Loch Katrine to 
furnish water for Glaswegians ! 

Our road ran in the deep defile that lies be- 
tween the two great bens, Lomond (3192) and 
Venue (2393). The top of Lomond was clear 



The Lakes 291 

in the increasing sunlight, but mists still skirted 
his feet; while Venue was mist-clad from base 
to summit, the thin white veils tearing every 
now and then, as they swayed against the pine 
trees jagged tops, and lifting and then settling 
again. 

And soon, we were at ''far Loch Ard." It is 
a lovely little bit of water; we wondered why 
the stag was not tempted to turn aside hither 
— but then, we remembered, the stag did know, 
did save himself. Fishermen were out in their 
boats, and altogether we decided that if the stag 
did not come here we should, in the distant time 
when we should spend a summer in this High- 
land peace. 

Ard is little, but a large-in-little, a one-act 
play to Lomond's big drama. We chose our 
*'seat," and we hoped that the owner of The 
Glashart would be gracious when we sent him 
word of his eviction. Grlashart is a short way 
above the pass of Aberf oyle where, to our pleas- 
ure, the troops of Cromwell were defeated by 
Graham of Duchray. 

But this time, after twelve miles of walk, 
come noontide and a keen appetite, like the stag 
who 

"pondered refuge from his toil" 

we were content to house ourselves in the hotel 



292 The Spell of Scotland 

at Aberfoyle. We chose the one called "Baillie 
Nicol Jarvie," because this is all Eob Eoy 
country. In truth we felt at home with the 
Baillie, and with the Forth flowing in front of 
the town, and the old clachan of Aberfoyle 
marked by a few stones. 

In the late afternoon of this already full day 
we found there was a coach leaving for Lake 
Menteith which would return in the late twi- 
light, too late for dinner, but Baillie Nicol was 
kind and we could have supper on our return. 
So we were off to Menteith, and to an old 
^memory, reaching back to the daughter of 
James Fitz James. But at this far distance 
she seemed to belong to an older day. 

Menteith is a little lake, a fragment of the 
abundant blue of Scotland's waters, and it is 
surrounded by hills that are heather clad ; only 
the southern shore is wooded. Near the south- 
ern shore lies anchored the Island of Inchma- 
hone — isle of rest — where once stood a priory, 
and now only a few arches keep the shadowy 
memory in their green covert. The stones of 
the dead lie about, for the Isle of Eest was an 
island of burial. 

Hither came Mary Queen of Scots, when she 
was five years old, here for an island of refuge, 
since the defeat at Pinkie meant that Henry 



The Lakes 293 

VIII was nearer and nearer the little life that 
stood between him and Scotland 's throne — 

"0 ye mariners, mariners, mariners, 
That sail upon the sea. 
Let not my father nor mother to wit. 
The death that I maun die!" 

She came with her four Maries, and together 
they went to France, together they made merry 
and made love at the French court, and, all un- 
scathed, they returned fifteen years later — 

"Yestreen the queen had four Maries, 
To-night she'll hae but three; 
There was Marie Seton, and Marie Beatoun, 
And Marie Carmichael and me — " 

It was as though she were lost from the world, 
as we went back in the dimming day; almost 
the only time I have ever lost her since historic 
memories came to be my own personal mem- 
ories. And yet, I knew I should find her again. 
Mary is one of the women who do not go into 
exile once they have made harbour in the affec- 
tions. 

Next day, half by a hill-road and half by a 
foot-path, with mountains whose names were 
poems evoking the one poem of the region, with 
the far view, and with birches closing in the 
highway now and then, and now and then open- 
ing into a near-far view of glen and stream and 



294 The Spell of Scotland 

strath and path, we came to — The Trossachs. 
It is a walk of perhaps eight miles through a 
charming memory-haunted land, lovely cer- 
tainly, lonely; there were few people to be met 
with, but there was no sense of desertion. It 
was a day of quick clouds, rushing across a 
deep blue, compact white clouds which say noth- 
ing of rain, and very vivid air, the surfaces and 
the shadows being closely defined. The birch 
leaves played gleefully over the path as we left 
the highway, and that sweet shrewd scent of the 
birch leaf, as I "pu'd a birk" now and then, 
completed the thrill, the ecstasy — if one may be 
permitted the extravagance. 

"But ere the Brig' o' Turk was won 
The headmost horseman rode alone, 
Alone, but with unbated zeal — " 

Here I should take up the thread of the old 
poem and weave it entire. But first because I 
had come adventuring, even like the Gudeman 
o' Ballengeich, and taking my chances as they 
came along, and meeting no Highland girl and 
no Fair Ellen, I did seek out lodgings in one 
of the cottages which cluster about the foot of 
Glen Finglas, typical Highland cottages. Not 
the kind, I regret and do not regret, which 
Dorothy Wordsworth describes with such tri- 
umph, where William and Dorothy and Cole- 



The Lakes 295 

ridge put up — ''we caroused our cups of coffee, 
laughing like children, ' ' over the adventure ; but 
still a cottage, with a single bed room. These 
cottages, no doubt because artists now and then 
inhabit them and because all the world passes 
by and because they are on Montrose property, 
are what the artist and the poet mean by a cot- 
tage, low-browed, of field stone, and rose-en- 
twined. 

The hurried traveler with no time to spare 
and no comfor.ts, lodges at the Trossachs hotel, 
which aspires to look like a Lady-of-the-Lake 
Abbotsford, and is, in truth, of an awesome 
splendour like some Del Monte or Ponce de 
Leon. 

There is a parish church — I heard the bell far 
off in the woods — near the hotel, but standing 
mid 

"the copsewood gray 
That waved and wept on Loch Aehray." 

It waved gently, and wept not at all that 
peaceful Sunday morning when we made our 
way by path and strath into the dell of peace. 
The people coming from the countryside repos- 
sess their own, and of course the tourists are 
not in the church, or if there, with a subdued 
quality. The coaches do not run, and there fell 
a peace over all the too well known, too much 



296 The Spell of Scotland 

trodden land, which restored it to the century 
in which it truly belongs. 

In the late afternoon, under that matchless 
sky which the wind had swept clear of even 
rapid clouds — we were glad we could match it 
by no other Scottish sky, and only by the sky 
which shone down when we first came to the 
Lake, that aeon ago — and by the scant two 
miles that lie between the Brig and the Lake, 
*' stepping westward," we followed the far 
memory till it was present. 

The road leads through the forest beautifully, 
peacefully. If on that early September day no 
birds sang, still one missed nothing, not even 
the horn of the Knight of Snowdoun. The 
paths twine and retwine, through this bosky 
birchen wood, with heather purple, and knee 
deep on either side, and through the trees swift 
glimpses of the storied mountains. 

Suddenly the way changes, the ground 
breaks, rocks heap themselves, a gorge appears, 
— it is the very place! 

"Dashing down a darksome glen, 
Soon lost to hound and hunter's ken, 
In the deep Trossaehs' wildest nook 
His solitary refuge took." 

I can never forget the thrill I had in the old 
schoolroom when Mr. Kennedy first read the 



The Lakes 297 

story and I knew that the stag had escaped. I 
felt even more certain of it in this wild glen. 
Surely he must be in there still. And so I re- 
fused to go and find him. 

I could not discover where fell the gallant 
gray. I mean I was without guide and could 
map my own geography out of my own more 
certain knowledge. So I chose a lovely green 
spot — notwithstanding my remembrance of 
' ' stumbling in the rugged dell ' ' — encircled with 
oak and birch, the shadows lying athwart it as 
they would write the legend. 

"Woe worth the chase, woe worth the day. 
That costs thy life, my gallant gray." 

And then, by a very pleasant path, instead 
of the tortuous ladderlike way which James 
Fitz James was forced to take, I came again to 
The Lake, splendid in the evening as it had 
been mysterious in the morning. 

"The western waves of ebbing day 
Roll'd o'er the glen their level way; 
Each purple peak, each flinty spire, 
Was bathed in floods of living fire. 
But not a setting beam could glow 
Witbdn the dark ravine below, 
Where twined the path in shadow hid. 
Round many a rocky pyramid, 
Shooting abruptly from the dell 
Its thunder-splintered pinnacle." 



298 The Spell of Scotland 

No shallop set out when I raised my imagi- 
nary horn and blew my imaginary salute to the 
lovely isle. There were no boats to hire, on 
this Sunday, and I was not Malcolm Graeme 
to swim the space. But there it lay, bosky and 
beautiful, a green bit of peace in a blue world. 
Nothing could rob me of my memory of Loch 
Katrine, not even the very lake itself. 



Stirling 

Stirling stands up boldly — in the midst of 
Scotland. 

That is the feeling I had in coming on it by 
train from the West. Highlanders coming on 
it from the North, English coming on it from 
the South, must have seen even more conclu- 
sively that Stirling rises out of the midst of 
Scotland. 

I should have preferred to approach it on 
foot. But then, this is the only conquering way 
in which to make one's descent on any corner 
of the world one seeks to possess; either on 
one's own valiant two feet or on the resound- 
ing four feet of a battle charger. Alas, to-day 
one does neither. But — there lies Stirling ris- 
ing from the water-swept plain, through the 



The Lakes 299 



gray of a Scotch morning', entirely worthy of 
being *' taken," and looking completely the part 
it has played in Scottish history. 

Scotland is curiously provided with these nat- 
ural forts, the Eocks of Edinburgh and Dum- 
barton and Stirling. They have risen out of 
the plain, for the defense and the contention of 
man. And because Stirling lies, between East 
and West, between North and South, it has 
looked down on more history, seen more armies 
advance and retreat than — any other one place 
in the world? 

Standing upon its wind-swept battlements — 
I can never think that the wind dies down on 
the heights of Stirling — one looks upon the 
panorama of Scottish history. The Lomonds 
lie blue and far to the east, the Grrampians gray 
and stalwart to the north, and on the west the 
peaks of the Highlands, Ben Lomond and all the 
hills that rampart ''The Lady of the Lake." 
All around the sky were ramparts of low-lying 
clouds, lifting themselves here and there at the 
corners of the world into splendid impregnable 
bastions. Stirling looks a part of this ground 
plan, of this sky battlement. 

Soldiers, from yonder heights! — and you 
know the rest. From this height you who are 
far removed from those our wars, a mere hu- 



300 The Spell of Scotland 

man speck in the twentieth century look down 
on seven battlefields. Did Pharaoh see more, 
or as much, from Cheops? The long list runs 
through a thousand years and is witness to the 
significance of Stirling. 

Here, in 843, was fought the battle of Cam- 
buskenneth, and the Painted People fell back, 
and Kenneth, who did not paint, made himself 
king of an increasing Scotland. 

Here, in 1297, was fought the battle of Stir- 
ling Bridge, and William Wallace with a thou- 
sand men — but Scotsmen — defeated the Earl of 
Surrey and the Abbot Cressingham with five 
thousand Englishmen. 

Here, in 1298, was fought the battle of Fal- 
kirk, and Wallace was defeated. But not for 
long. Dead, he continued to speak. 

Here, in 1313, was fought the battle of Ban- 
nockburn, forty thousand Scots against a hun- 
dred thousand English, Irish and Gascons. 
And The Bruce established Scotland Forever. 

Here, in 1488, was fought the battle of Sau- 
chieburn, the nobles against James III, and 
James flying from the field was treacherously 
slain. 

Here, in 1715, was fought the battle of Sher- 
iifmuir, when Mar and Albany with all their 



The Lakes 301 

men marched up the hill of Muir and then 
marched down again. 

Here, in 1745, Prince Charles experienced 
one of his great moments; how his great mo- 
ments stand forth in the pathos, yes, and the 
bathos, of his swift career. 

It is a tremendous panorama. 

"Scots, wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled! 
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led!" 

I listened while the guide went through with 
the battle, which, of course, is the Battle of 
Bannockburn. How The Bruce disposed his 
army to meet the English host he knew was com- 
ing up from the south to relieve the castle garri- 
son ; how they appeared at St. Ninians suddenly, 
and the ever-seeing Bruce remarked to Moray, 
who had been placed in charge of that defense 
— "there falls a rose from your chaplet" — it 
is almost too romantic not to be apocryphal; 
and how Moray (who was the Randolph Moray 
who scaled the crags at Edinburgh that March 
night) countered the English dash for the castle 
and won out ; how in the evening of the day as 
King Robert was inspecting his lines for the 
battle of the to-morrow, a to-morrow which had 
been scheduled the year before — *' unless by 



302 The Spell of Scotland 

St. John's day"; they had then a sense of lei- 
sure — the English knight Sir Henry de Bohun 
spurred upon him to single combat ; it is worth 
while listening to the broad Scots of the guide 
as he repeats his well-conned, his well-worn, but 
his immortal story — 

"High in his stirrups stood the King 
And gave his battle-ax the swing, 
Right on de Boune, the whiles he passed, 
Fell that stern dint — the first, the last, 
Such strength upon the blow was put. 
The helmet crashed like hazel nut." 

And all the battle the next day, until King 
Edward rides hot-trod to Berwick, leaving half 
his host dead upon this pleasant green field 
that lies so unremembering to the south of the 
castle. There is no more splendid moment in 
human history, unless all battles seem to you 
too barbaric to be splendid. But it made possi- 
ble a nation — and, I take it, Scotland has been 
necessary to the world. 

If this is too overwhelming a remembrance, 
there is an opposite to this, looking across the 
level lands of the Carse. The view leads past 
the Bridge of Allan, on to Dunblane, near which 
is the hill of Sheriffmuir. You can see the two 
armies in the distance of time and of the plain, 
creeping on each other unwittingly — and the 



The Lakes 303 



guide, too, is glad to turn to a later and less 
revered moment — 

"Some say that we wan, 

Some say that they wan, 
And some say that nane wan at a', man; 

But o' ae thing I'm sure, 

That at Sheriffmuir 
A battle there was that I saw, man; 

And we ran, and they ran. 

And they ran, and we ran. 
And they ran and we ran awa', man." 

To-day the wind has swept all these mur- 
murs of old wars into the infinite forgotten. 
The world is as though MacAlpine and Wallace 
and The Bruce and Prince Charles had not 
been. Or, is it? It looks that way, at this 
quiet moment, in this quiet century, and in this 
country where there is such quiet; a country 
with such a long tumult, a country with such 
a strange silence. But the rest of the world 
would never have been as it is but for the events 
that lie thick about here, but for the race which 
was bred in such events. 

"And the castle stood up black 
With the red sun at its back." 

There is something more dour about Stirling 
than Edinburgh. It is, in the first place, too 
useful. One never thinks of the castle at Edin- 



304 The Spell of Scotland 

burgh as anything but romantic, of the troops 
as anything but decorative. Stirling is still 
used, much of it closed, and it has the bare, un- 
inviting look of a historic place maintained by 
a modern up-keep. 

Evidently when Burns visited it he found a 
ruin, and was moved to express his Jacobitism 
— would a poet be anything but a Jacobite f — 

"Here Stuarts once in glory reign'd, 
And laws for Scotland's weal ordain'd; 
But now unroof'd their palace stands, 
Their scepter's sway'd by other hands; 
The injured Stuart line is gone, 
A race outlandish fills their throne — " 

Soon after you enter the gate you come upon 
the dungeon of Eoderick Dhu, and here you get 
the beginnings of that long song of the Lake, 
which lies to the west, when Allan Bane tunes 
his harp for Roderick — 

"Fling me the picture of the fight, 
When my elan met the Saxon's might, 
I'll listen, till my fancy hears 
The clang of swords, the crash of spears!" 

You may look into the Douglass room, where 
James II stabbed the Earl of Douglass (1452). 
It is a dark room for a dark deed. And the 
guide repeats Douglass 's refusal to the king : 



The Lakes 305 

"No, by the cross it may not be ! 

I've pledged my kingly word^ 
j^d like a thunder cloud he scowled, 

And half unsheathed his sword. 
Then drew the king that jewel'd glaive 

Which gore so oft had spilt. 
And in the haughty Douglass heart 

He sheathed it to the hilt." 

The Douglasses, we see, still thought them- 
selves ''peer to any lord in Scotland here," 
and the provocation to the Stewart, merely a 
second Stewart, must have been great — ''my 
kingly word"! and a "half sheathed" sword! 
Perhaps we shall have to forgive this second 
James about whom we know little but this af- 
fair, who seems as ineffective a monarch as 
James the Second of two centuries later. 

It is rather with Mary, and with her father 
and her son, that we associate Stirling. James 
V took his commoner title of "the Gudeman of 
Ballengeich" from here, when he went abroad 
on those errantries which all the Stewarts have 
dearly loved. At Stirling it seems more possi- 
ble that James V did write those poems which, 
yesterday in Edinburgh I felt like attributing 
to James IV. North of the bridge there is a 
hill, Moat Hill, called familiarly Hurley Haaky, 
because the Fifth James enjoyed here the rare 
sport of coasting down hill on a cow's skull. 



306 The Spell of Scotland 

The Scot can derive coasting from ''Hurley" 
and skull from ' ' Haaky ' ' — a clever people ! 

Queen Mary was brought to Stirling when a 
wee infant and crowned in the old High church, 
September 9, 1543 — and cried all the time they 
were making her queen. Surely ''it came with 
ane lass and it will pass with ane lass." It 
was from Stirling that she was taken to France, 
and when she returned she included Stirling in 
her royal progress. I cannot think she was 
much here. Mary was not dour. Still, his- 
toric rumour has her married here, secretly 
to Darnley, and, in the rooms of Eizzio ! And 
she came here once to see her princely son, hur- 
riedly, almost stealthily, as if she felt impend- 
ing fate. 

That son was much here. Stirling was con- 
sidered a safer place for James VI than Edin- 
burgh, and then, of course, it was such a cove- 
nanted place. James was baptized here also, 
and his Eoyal Mother was present, but not 
Darnley. He refused to come, but sat carous- 
ing — as usual — in Willie Bell's Lodging, still 
standing in Broad Street, if you care to look on 
it. Young James merely looked at the ceiling 
of the High church, and pointing his innocent 
finger at it, gravely criticized, "there is a hole." 
James was crowned in the High church, Mary 



The Lakes 307 

being at Locli Leven, and the coronation ser- 
mon was preached by Knox, who ''enjoyed the 
proudest triumph of his life." Then, I know, 
baby James had to sit through a two or three 
hour sermon. For once I am sorry for him. 

From the courtyard one sees the iron bars 
in the palace windows placed there to keep 
James from falling out — and others from steal- 
ing in? And here in the royal apartments. 
King James was taught his Latin and Greek 
like any other Scots boy, and by that same 
George Buchanan who was his mother's instruc- 
tor — and her defamer. Perhaps he was the au- 
thor of the betraying Casket letter ; in spite of 
Fronde's criticism based on internal evidence, 
that only Shakespeare or Mary could have writ- 
ten it. I can almost forgive Buchanan, for at 
one time when James was making more noise 
than beseemed a pupil of Buchanan, this school- 
master birched him then and there, whereupon 
the royal tear fell, and the royal yowl was 
lifted — and Lady Mar rushed in to quiet this 
uproarious division in the kingdom. 

The archives of Stirling were once rich in 
Scottish records. But General Monk removed 
them to London when he moved on that capital 
with the king also in his keeping. Years and 
years after, when Scotland demanded back her 



308 The Spell of Scotland 

records, they were sent by sea, the ship foun- 
dered, and sunk — and we have a right to accept 
legend as history in this land of lost records. 

One may use Stirling Castle for lovelier ends 
than history or battle, for temporal ends of 
beauty — which is not temporal. Else would 
the prospect from these ramparts not linger im- 
mortally in the memory and flash upon the in- 
ward eye as one of the most wonderful views 
in all the world. 

From Queen Mary^s Lookout there is the 
King's Park, with the King's Knot, the mys- 
terious octagonal mound; it may have looked 
lovelier when Mary looked down on its flower 
gardens and its orchards, but this green world 
is sightly. 

From the battlements above the Douglass 
garden there is a magnificent survey; the rich 
Carse of broad alluvial land with the Links of 
the Firth winding in and out among the fields, 
shining, and steely, reluctant to widen out into 
the sea. The Ochils from the far background, 
and nearer is the Abbey Craig, thickly wooded 
and crowned by the Wallace monument, which 
while it adds nothing to the beauty of the scene, 
would have made such a commanding watch 
tower for Wallace. Just below is the old 
Bridge which — not this bridge, but it looks old 



The Lakes 309 



enough with its venerable five hundred years — 
divided the English forces. Near by, on one 
of the Links, stands the tower of Cambus- 
kenneth Abbey, a pleasant walk through fields 
and a ferry ride across the Forth, to this mem- 
oried place, which once was a great abbey 
among abbeys; I doubt not David founded it. 
Bruce once held a parliament in it. Now it is 
tenanted chiefly by the mortal remains of that 
Third James who took flight from Sauchieburn, 
and whose ghost so haunted his nobles for years 
after. Queen Margaret also lies here, she who 
sat stitching, stitching, stitching, while those 
same nobles raged through Linlithgow and 
sought their king. Cambuskenneth — the name 
is splendid — is but a remnant of grandeur. 
But there are a few charming cottages nearby, 
rose-embowered, perhaps with roses that de- 
scend from those in Mary's garden. 

Across to the north is the Bridge of Allan, 
come to be a celebrated watering place — 

"On the banks of Allan Water 
None so fair as she." 

Far across to the north is Dunblane, with a 
restored-ruined cathedral — 

"The sun has gone down o'er the lofty Ben Lomond 
And left the red clouds to preside o'er the scene, 



310 The Spell of Scotland 

While lanely I stray in the calm simmer gloamin' 
To muse on sweet Jessie the flower o' Dunblane." 

In the green nestle of the woods, away to the 
right, are the battlements of Doune — 

"Oh, lang will his lady 

Look frae the Castle Doune, 
Ere she see the Earl o' Moray 
Come sounding through the toun." 

The Bonnie Earl was murdered at Doni- 
bristle Castle, on Inverkeithing Bay across the 
Forth from Edinburgh, where the King sent 
his lordship — *'oh, woe betide ye, Huntly'* — 
to do the deed. It was our same kingly James 
VI, and I like to think that his life had its en- 
tertaining moments, even if Anne of Denmark 
did have to look long and longingly down from 
the battlements of Doune. 

The lookout to the north is called the Vic- 
toria — as if to link Victoria with Mary! But 
the old queen was proudest of her blood from 
the eternally young queen. An inscription on 
the wall registers the fact that Queen Victoria 
and the Prince Consort visited the castle in 
1842. 

And not any sovereign since until 1914. 

I had reached the city in the mid-afternoon, 
unconscious of royalty, that is, of living roy- 
alty, as one is in Scotland. It seems that the 



The Lakes 311 



king and queen, George and Mary, were mak- 
ing a visit to Stirling. Consequently there 
were no carriages at the station — and one must 
be very careful how one walked on the royal 
crimson carpet. Two small boys who scorned 
royalty, were impressed into service, to carry 
bags to the hotel. But the press of the people 
was too great. The king and queen had issued 
from the castle, were coming back through the 
town 

"The castle gates were open flung, 
The quivering drawbridge rock'd and rung, 
And echo'd loud the flinty street 
Beneath the coursers' clattering feet, 
As slowly down the steep descent 
Fair Scotland's King and nobles went." 

I took refuge in a bank building, and even se- 
cured a place at the windows. For some rea- 
son the thrifty people had not rented these 
advantageous casements. The king and queen 
passed. I saw them plainly — yes, plainly. 
And the people were curiously quiet. They did 
not mutter, they were decorous, there was no 
repudiation, but — ^what's a king or queen of 
diluted Stewart blood to Scotsmen of this un- 
diluted town? 

That afternoon in the castle I understood. 
An elderly Scotsman — I know of no people 



312 The Spell of Scotland 

whom age so becomes, who wear it with such 
grace and dignity and retained power — looking 
with me at the memorial tablet to Queen Vic- 
toria and Prince Albert, in the west lookout, 
explained — "It's seventy years since royalty 
has been here. Not from that day to this." 

It seems that on the old day, the day of 1842, 
when royalty rode in procession through the 
streets of Stirling, the commoners pressed too 
close about. It offended the queen; she liked 
a little space. (I remembered the old pun per- 
petrated by Lord Palmerston, when he was 
with Queen Victoria at the reviewing of the 
troops returned from the Crimea, and at the 
queen's complaining that she smelled spirits, 
"Pam" explained — "Yes, esprit de corps.") 
So she returned not at all to Stirling. I could 
wish King Edward had, the one Hanoverian 
who has succeeded in being a Stewart. 

The view is almost as commanding from 
Ladies Rock in the old cemetery, whither I went, 
because in the very old days I had known in- 
timately, as a child reader, the "Maiden Mar- 
tyr," and here was to find her monument. 

There are other monuments, none so historic, 
so grandiose, so solemn. The friends of a gen- 
tleman who had died about mid-century record 
that he died ' ' at Plean Junction. ' ' Somehow it 



The Lakes 313 

seemed very uncertain, ambiguous, capable of 
mistake, to die at a Junction out of which must 
run different ways. 

And one man, buried here, was brought all 
the way, as the tombstone publishes, from ''St. 
Peter, Minnesota." It's a historic town, to its 
own people. But what a curious linking with 
this very old town. I thought of a man who 
had hurried away from Montana the winter be- 
fore, because he wanted to "smell the heather 
once more before I die." And he had died in 
St. Paul, Minnesota, only a thousand miles on 
his way back to the heather. 

Viewed from below, the castle is splendid. 
The road crosses the bridge, skirts the north 
side of the Rock, toward the King's Knot; a 
view-full walk, almost as good, almost, as Edin- 
burgh from Princes Gardens; this green and 
pastoral, that multicoloured and urban. The 
whole situation is very similar, the long ridge 
of the town, the heaven-topping castle hill. 
Stirling is the Old Town of Edinburgh minus 
the New Town. And so we confess ourselves 
modern. Stirling is not so lovely; yet it is 
more truly, more purely Scottish. Edinburgh 
is a city of the world. Stirling is a town of 
Scotland. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE WEST COUNTRY 

Glasgow 

CANNOT think why, in a book to be called 
deliberately ''The Spell of Scotland," 
there should be a chapter on Glasgow. 

I remember that in his "Picturesque Notes," 
to the second edition Eobert Louis Stevenson 
added a foot-note in rebuke to the Glaswegians 
who had taken to themselves much pleasure at 
the reservations of Stevenson's praise of Edin- 
burgh — ''But remember I have not yet written 
a book on Glasgow." He never did. And did 
any one ever write "Picturesque Notes on Glas- 
gow"? 

I remember that thirty years ago when a col- 
lege professor was making the "grand tour" — 
thirty years ago seems as far back as three 
hundred years when James Howell was making 
his "grand tour" — he asked a casually met Glas- 
wegian what there was to be seen, and this hon- 
est Scot, pointing to the cathedral declared, 

314 



The West Country 315 

'Hhat's the only aydifyce ye '11 care to look at." 
I should like to be singular, to write of pic- 
turesque points in Glasgow. But how can it be 
done ? Glasgow does not aspire to picturesque- 
ness or to historicalness. Glasgow is content, 
more than content, in having her commerce and 
her industry always "in spate.'' 

Glasgow is the second city of size in the 
United Kingdom, and the first city in being it- 
self. London is too varied and divided in inter- 
ests ; it never forgets that it is the capital of the 
world, and a royal capital. Glasgow never for- 
gets that it is itself, very honestly and very 
democratically, a city of Scots. Not of royal 
Stewarts, and no castle dominates it. But a 
city made out of the most inveterate Scottish 
characteristics. Or I think I would better say 
Scotch. That is a practical adjective, and 
somewhat despised of culture; therefore appli- 
cable to Glasgow. While Scottish is romantic 
and somewhat pretending. 

Glasgow is the capital of the Whig country, 
of the democratic Scotland of covenanting an- 
cestry. Glasgow is precisely what one would 
expect to issue out of the energy and hon- 
esty and canniness and uncompromise of that 
corner of the world. Historically it belongs 
to Wallace, the commoner-liberator. And if 



316 The Spell of Scotland 

Burns is the genius of this southwestern Scot- 
land, as Scott is of the southeastern, it is pre- 
cisely the difference between the regions; as 
Edinburgh and Glasgow differ. 

The towns are less than an hour apart by 
express train. They are all of Scotch history 
and characteristics apart in quality and in 
genius. Edinburgh is still royal, and sits su- 
preme upon its hill, its past so present one for- 
gets it is the past. Glasgow never could have 
been royal ; and so it never was significant until 
royal Scotland ceased to be, and democratic 
Scotland, where a man's a man for a' that, 
came to take the place of the old, to take it com- 
pletely, utterly. So long as the world was old, 
was the Old World, and looked toward the East, 
Edinburgh would be the chief city. When the 
world began to be new, and to look toward the 
New World, Glasgow came swiftly into being, 
and the race is to the swift. 

There is history to Glasgow, when it was a 
green pleasant village, and there was romance. 
It is but a short way, a foot-path journey if 
the pleasant green fields still invited, out to 
Bothwell Castle; splendid ruin, and, therefore, 
recalling Mary and Darnley and the Lennoxes, 
but not Bothwell. But Landside, where Mary 
was defeated, is a Glaswegian suburb, Kelvin- 




PORTRAIT OF THOMAS CARLYLE^ BY WHISTLER. 



The West Country 317 

grove — ''let us haste" — is a prosperous resi- 
dence district. The Broomielaw, lovely word, 
means simply and largely the harbour of Glas- 
gow, made deliberately out of Clyde water in 
order that Glasgow's prosperity might flow out 
of the very heart of the city. ''Lord, let Glas- 
gow flourish according to the preaching of Thy 
word," ran the old motto. It has been short- 
ened of late. 

The heart of the city is dreary miles of long 
monotonous streets, where beauty is never 
wasted in grass blade or architecture. George's 
Square may be noble, it has some good monu- 
ments, but it is veiled in commercial grime, hke 
all the town. What could be expected of a city 
that would name its principal business street, 
" Sauchieburn, " memorializing and defying 
that petty tragedy? 

There is an art gallery with Whistler's "Car- 
lyle," and a few other notable pictures (John 
Lavery's I looked at with joy) to redeem miles 
of mediocrity. (Here I should like to be orig- 
inal and not condemn, but there are the miles.) 

There is a cathedral, that "aydifyce" of note, 
touched almost nothing by the spirit of "re- 
form"; for the burghers of Glasgow, then as 
now, believing that their cathedral belonged to 
them, rose in their might and cast out the de- 



318 The Spell of Scotland 

spoilers before they had done more than smash 
a few ''idols." Therefore this shrine of St. 
Kentigern's is more pleasing than the reformed 
and restored shrine of St. Giles. The crypt 
is particularly impressive. And the very pillar 
behind which Eob Eoy hid is all but labeled. 
Of course it is ''authentic," for Scott chose it. 
What unrivaled literary sport had Scott in fit- 
ting history to geography ! 

There is a University, one of the first in the 
Kingdom; the city universities are gaining on 
the classic Oxford and St. Andrews. 

But chiefly there are miles of houses of work- 
ing men, more humble than they ought to be. 
If Glasgow is one of the best governed cities in 
the world, and has the best water supply in the 
world — except that of St. Paul — would that the 
Corporation of the City of Glasgow would scat- 
ter a little loveliness before the eyes of these 
patient and devoted workingmen. 

But what a chorus their work raises. In 
shipyards what mighty work is wrought, even 
such tragically destined work, and manufac- 
tured beauty, as the Lusitania! 

From Glasgow it is that the Scot has gone 
out to all the ends of the earth. If the "Darien 
scheme" of wresting commerce from England 
failed utterly, and Glasgow failed most of all, 



The West Country 319 

that undoing was the making of the town. It 
is not possible to down the Scot. The smallest 
drop of blood tells, and it never fails to be 
Scottish. Most romantic, most poetic, most 
recMess, most canny of people. The High- 
lander and the Lowlander that Mr. Morley 
found mixed in the character of Gladstone, and 
the explanation of his character, is the explana- 
tion of any Scot, and of Scotland. 



Ayr 

Always the West is the democratic corner of 
a country; or, let me say almost always, if you 
have data wherewith to dispute a wholesale as- 
sertion. Sparta was west of Athens, La Eo- 
chelle was west of Paris, Switzerland was west 
of Gesler; Norway is west of Sweden, the 
American West is west of the American East. 
And Galloway and Ayrshire are the west Low- 
lands of Scotland. 

The West is newer always, freer, more open, 
more space and more lure for independence. 
The West is never feudal, until the West moves 
on and the East takes its place. Here men de- 
velop, not into lords and chiefs, but into men. 
Wallace may come out of the West, but it is 



320 The Spell of Scotland 

after he lias come out that he leads men, in the 
establishment of a kingdom, but more in a wider 
fight for freedom; while he is in the West he 
adventures as a man among men, on the Waters 
of Irvine, in Laglyne Wood, at Cumnock. And 
a Bruce, struggling with himself, and setting 
himself against a Comyn, may stagger out of a 
Greyfriars at Dumfries, and, bewildered, ex- 
claim, "I doubt I have slain the Comyn!" 
When a follower makes ^'siccar," and all the 
religious and human affronts mass to sober 
The Bruce, a king may come out of Galloway, 
out of a brawl, if a church brawl, and establish 
the kingdom and the royal line forever. 

If a Wallace, if a Bruce, can proceed out of 
these Lowlands — and a Paul Jones! — a poet 
must come also. And a poet who is as much 
the essence of that west country as chieftain 
or king. Everything was ready to produce 
Burns in 1759. William Burns had come from 
Dunnottar, a silent, hard-working. God-fearing 
Covenanter, into this covenanting corner of 
Scotland. It was filled with men and women 
who had grown accustomed to worshiping God 
according to their independent consciences, and 
in the shelter of these dales and hills, some- 
times harried by that covenanter-hunting fox, 
Claverhouse — to his defeat ; finally winning the 



The West Country 321 

right to "anconcealed worship. Seven years 
gone, and WiUiam Burns having built the 
''auld clay biggan" at Alio way, he married a 
Carrick maid, Agnes Broun, a maid who had 
much of the Celt in her. And Eobert Burns 
was born. 

It is of course only after the event that we 
know how fortunate were the leading circum- 
stances, how inevitable the advent of Eobert 
Burns. Father and mother, time and place, 
conspired to him. And all Scotland, all that 
has been Scotland since, results from him. It 
is Scott who reconstructed Scotland, made the 
historic past live. But it is Burns who is Scot- 
land, Scotland remains of his temper; homely, 
human, intense, impassioned; with a dash and 
more of the practical and frugal necessary for 
the making of a nation, but worse than super- 
fluous for the making of a Burns. 

Three towns of this Scottish corner contend 
not for the birth but for the honours of Burns. 
If Dumfries is the capital of Burnsland and the 
place of his burial, Ayr is gateway to the land 
and the place of his birth; while Kilmarnock, 
weaver's town and most unpoetic, but produc- 
tive of poets and poetesses, claims for itself the 
high and distinct literary honours, having pub- 
lished the first edition in an attic, and having 



322 The Spell of Scotland 

loaned its name as title for the most imposing 
edition, and having in its museum possession 
all the published Burns editions. 

To follow his footsteps through Burnsland 
were impossible to the most ardent. For Burns 
was a plowman who trod many fields, and 
turned up many daisies, and disturbed many a 
wee mousie, a poet who dreamed beside many a 
stream, and if he spent but a brief lifetime in 
all, it would take a lifetime, and that active, to 
overtake him. 

* ' I have no dearer aim than to make leisurely 
pilgrimages through Caledonia; to sit on the 
fields of her battles, to wander on the romantic 
banks of her rivers, and to muse on the stately 
towers or venerable ruins, once the honoured 
abodes of her heroes." 

He did this abundantly. We have followed 
him in many a place. But in Burnsland it were 
all too intimate, if not impossible. He knew 
all the rivers of this west country, Nith, Doon, 
Ayr, Afton. 

"The streams he wandered near; 
The maids whom he loved, the songs he sung, 
All, all are dear." 

He did not apparently know the sea, or love 
it, although he was born almost within sound 
of it; and he sings of it not at all. He knew 



The West Country 323 

the legends of the land. **The story of Wal- 
lace poured a Scottish prejudice into my 
veins," and he deliberately followed the Bruce 
legend, hoping it would enter into his blood and 
spirit, and something large and worthy would 
result. It did, not an epic, but the strong song 
of a nation, "Scots wha hae." 

His land was the home of Lollards and Cove- 
nanters. Independence was in the blood. It 
was the land of the '^ fighting Kennedys," who 
disputed with each other, what time they were 
not furnishing an Abbot of Crossraguel to dis- 
pute with John Knox, or a Gude Maister Wal- 
ter Kennedy to have a ''flytting" with the 
Kynge's Makar, William Dunbar. Where 
Burns secured his Jacobitism I do not know, 
but, of course, a poet is by nature a Jacobite; 
as he himself said, "the Muses were all Jaco- 
bite." 

Burnsland is rich in other literary associa- 
tions. Johannes Scotus is reckoned to have 
been born also at Ayr; and there are John 
Gait, James Boswell, James Montgomery, Alex- 
ander Smith, Ainslie, Cunningham, and the 
Carlyles, and Scott in some of his most lively 
romances. The Book of Taliessin is written 
in part of this land, the Admirable Crichton 
was bom here. It is a close-packed little port- 



324 The Spell of Scotland 

manteau of land. There is pursuit enough for 
at least a summer's travel. And, without 
doubt, there are as many pilgrims who explore 
Ayrshire as Warwickshire, and much more lov- 
ingly. 

The entrance is by Ayr. And this I think 
can be made most claimingly, most fitly, by 
steamer from Belfast. For one thing, it avoids 
entrance at Glasgow. Ayr is still a sea port of 
some importance; and Ireland, democratic, ro- 
mantic, intimate, is a preparation for this simi- 
lar country of Galloway and about; both lands 
are still Celtic. 

Ayr looks well from the sea as one comes 
in, although in the day of Burns the Eatton- 
key was a more casual place, and harbour works 
to retain the traffic were not yet built. But the 
town sits down well into the waterside of its 
Doon and Ayr rivers, much like a continental 
town where fresh waters are precious. There 
is long suburban dwelling, not as it was a hun- 
dred and fifty years ago. 

And Ayr looks out on the sea with a mag- 
nificent prospect from any of her neighbouring 
segments of coast, with ruined castles set prop- 
erly, with the dark mass of romantic Arran 
purple across the waters, with Ailsa Eock evi- 



The West Country 325 

dent, and to a far-seeing eye the blue line of 
Ireland whence we have come. 

There is small reason for staying in Ayr, un- 
less for a wee bit nappie in Tam o' Shanter's 
inn, which still boasts itself the original and 
only Tam and hangs a painting above the door 
to prove itself the starting point, this last ''ca' 
hoose," for Alloway. 

To Alloway one may go by tram ! It sounds 
flat and unprofitable. But the gray mare Meg 
is gone, has followed her tail into the witches 
night. And if it were not the tram it would 
be a taxi. And what have witches and warlocks 
to do with electricity, in truth how can they 
compete with electricity? 

"Nae man can tether time or tide ; 
The hour approaches Tam maun ride; 
That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane, 
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in ; 
An' sic a night he taks the road in 
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in." 

To follow, in a tram, in broad daylight, oh, 
certainly the world has changed, and the Deil 
too since "the Deil had business on his hand." 
The occupations that are gone! It is a high- 
way one follows to-day, suburban villas and 
well-kept fields line the way; no need to *'skel- 



326 The Spell of Scotland 

pit on thro' dub and mire." Tarn would be 
quite without adventure. And to-day one won- 
ders if even the lightning can play about this 
commonplace way. There is however the Eace- 
course — some reminder of Meg! 

Yet, it is possible to forget this pleasant day, 
and to slip back into old night as 

"Before him Doon pours a' his floods ; 
The doubling storm roars through the woods ; 
The lightnings flash frae pole to pole; 
Near and more near the thunders roll ; 
When, glimmering through the groaning trees, 
Kirk AUoway seem'd in a bleeze." 

The walls of the Auld Kirk lie before us — 
and ''Auld Nick in shape o' beast" is sitting 
under "the winnock bunker i' the east." Who 
would deny that he also like Tammie " glow- 
er 'd amazed and curious"? 

"The piper loud and louder blew, 
The dancers quick, and quicker flew; 
They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit, 
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, 
And coost her duddies to the wark. 
And linket at it in her sark." 

The ride on this tram has developed a dizzi- 
ness. 

"Wi' tippenny we fear nae evil; 
Wi' usquebae we'll face the devil I" 

Did we cry "weel done, cutty sark!" Then 



The West Country 327 

we, too, must descend and hurry on foot to the 
old Brig o' Doon. Not pausing long for The 
Monument, even to look at the wedding ring 
of Jean Armour, or the Bible Burns gave to 
Highland Mary ; but on to the Auld Kirk which 
stands opposite. 

To Burns we owe this church in more ways 
than one. When a certain book of ''Antiqui- 
ties" was being planned. Burns asked that the 
Auld Kirk of AUoway be included. If Burns 
would make it immortal? yes. So the story of 
Tam o' Shanter came to make Kirk Alloway 
forever to be remembered. What would Wil- 
liam Burns, covenanter, have thought? For I 
cannot but think that William looked often 
askance at the acts of his genius-son. But 
William was safely buried within the kirk, and 
if the epitaph written by the son reads true, 
William was excellently covenanted. 

"0 ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains, 

Draw near with pious rev'rence and attend. 
Here lies the loving husband's dear remains, 

The tender father, and the gen'rous friend. 
The pitying heart that felt for human woe, 

The daimtless heart that fear'd no human pride, 
The friend of man, to vice alone a foe, 

For 'ev'n his failings lean'd to virtue's side.' " 

The auld clay biggan still stands in Alloway, 



328 The Spell of Scotland 

and ''the banks and braes o' bonnie Doon" 
bloom as ''fresh and fair" to-day as they did 
a century and a half ago. It is a simpler place 
than the birth house on High Street in Strat- 
ford, and a simpler environment than College 
Wynd in Edinburgh. This is a true cotter's 
home, and Saturday nights within must have 
been of the description. 

Somehow it is less of a tourist's way of 
forced entry, this through the barn, than the 
basement door at Abbotsf ord ; and so one passes 
through the byre and into the kitchen, where 
stands the bed in which Eobert Burns was born. 
It is all beautifully homely, as lowly as a man- 
ger ; and, how the world has been filled by what 
was once small frail life herein ! 

It is difficult to divide the poet 's relics among 
so many claimant places, but here and in the 
museum are many mementoes of the poet. For 
this as well as Kirk Alloway is a national monu- 
ment, or something like. 

There was a century during which this was 
merely a clay biggan, and a public house, and 
that offended no one, least of all the friends of 
the poet. Except Keats. He came hither in 
1818. The host was drunk most of the time, 
and garrulous. Keats complained that it af- 
fected his "sublimity." And, for once, Keats 



The West Country 329 

turned severe self-critic. "The flat dog made 
me write a flat sonnet." 

It was while living at Mount Oliphant, two 
miles east of Ayr, when Burns was fifteen, that 
he began that long, long list of lasses whom he 
loved and whom he made immortal with a verse. 
He might have said with James V, — and much 
he resembled that Gudeman o' Ballangeich — '4t 
came wi' ane lass and it will gae wi' ane lass." 
The first was Nelly Kilpatrick, daughter of the 
miller of Perclewan — 

"0, ance I lov'd a bonnie lass, 
Ay, and I love her still." 

The last was Jessie Lewars, who ministered 
to him in those last days in the Millhole brae in 
Dumfries — 

"0 wert thou in the cauld blast 
On yonder lea, on yonder lea. 
My plaidie to the angry airt, 

I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee." 

To Kilmarnock one goes for its name. But 
"the streets and neuks o' Killie" are changed 
since that Burns ' day. It is a sprawling, thriv- 
ing factory town, a town of weavers — and a 
town of poets. There is something in the whirr 
of wheels, to those who are within it, which es- 
tablishes rhythm in the ear, and often leads 



330 The Spell of Scotland 

to well-measured poetry! Surely a weaver is 
equal to a plowman, and I fancy that many a 
workingman and working lass with lines run- 
ning through the head walk this Waterloo 
street, pass Tam o' Shanter's arms, and looks 
above the Loan Office at the attic where that 
precious first edition was printed in 1786. 
Poems and pawn broking — Waterloo Street is 
a suggestive Grub street. 

From Kilmarnock to Dumfries by train is a 
Burns pilgrimage, even though it be taken with- 
out break, and in seventy-seven minutes ! And 
interspersed are other memories. It is entirely 
what Burnsland should be, nothing set down in 
high tragedy, but all lyrical, with gentle hills, 
whispering rivers, and meadows and woodlands 
all the way. 

Mauchline, where the burst of song was like 
that of a skylark, the very outpouring of the 
man's soul; here lies the field where he turned 
up the daisy and found an immortal lyric. 

Auchinleek, where Boswell and Dr. Johnson 
paused on their journey and where to the hot- 
flung query of the Doctor, *'Pray, what good 
did Cromwell ever do the country?" the judicial 
and wrathful father of our Boswell flung the 
hotter retort — *'He gart kings ken they had a 
lith in their necks." The Scottish tongue is 



The West Country 331 

the tongue of rebellions. Should we stay in this 
corner of the world longer we might turn cove- 
nanting and Cromwellian ! 

Cumnock, which William Wallace made his 
headquarters between the battle of Stirling 
bridge and that of Falkirk. 

New Cumnock, whence the Afton so sweetly 
falls into the Nith — 

"Flow gently, sweet Afton, amang thy green braes, 
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise." 

Kirkconnel, which is said not to be the Kirk- 
connel where Fair Helen lies — but like the 
blasted heath, will it not serve? 

"I wish I were where Helen lies, ' 
Baith night and day on me she cries." 

And in any event "The Bairnies cuddle doon 
at Nicht'^ were "waukrife rogues" in Kirk- 
connel. 

Sanquhar to Thornhill, with rounding green 
hills along the Nith, with memories of Old 
Queensberry and Defoe and Wordsworth and 
Coleridge and Allan Eamsay and Dr. John 
Brown, and Carlyle. Thornhill is Dalgarnock, 
where fairs were held — 

"But a' the niest week, as I petted wi' care, 
I gaed to the tryste o' Dalgarnock, 
And wha but my fine, fickle lover was there? 



332 The Spell of Scotland 

I giowr'd as I'd seen a warlock, a warlock, 
I giowr'd as I'd seen a warlock." 

Dunscore lies to the right with ^'Redgaunt- 
let" memories, and a few miles farther on is 
Craigenputtock. 

Ellisland a brief moment, where immortal 
"Tam" was written as under the spell of a war- 
lock. 

Dumfries 

It is a proud little city, more than a bit self- 
satisfied. It realizes that its possession of the 
mortal remains of Burns gives it large claim 
in his immortality, and the Burns monument 
is quite the center of the town. 

Yet Dumfries is well satisfied from other ar- 
gument. Historically, it goes back to Bruce 
and Comyn, and even to a Eoman beyond. But 
there is nothing left of old Greyfriars where 
the killing of Comyn took place. Dumfries had 
its moment in the Forty Five, for the Bonnie 
Prince was here as he went down to the inva- 
sion of England, and his room in what is now 
the Commercial Hotel may be looked into but 
not lodged in; Dumfries, in spite of Covenant, 
has its modicum of Jacobitism. 

It is in ''Humphrey Clinker" that Smollett 



The West Country 333 

compels some one to say ''If I was confined to 
Scotland I would choose Dumfries as my place 
of residence." Confined to Scotland, forsooth! 
Dumfries is larger than it was in the days of 
Burns, and very busy withal, in factories and 
railroads. But it is still a country town, still 
hints at something of dales and woods and 
streams, even on High Street. The land about 
is true Burnsland; low, gentle hills closing in 
the horizon in a golden sea of warmth and sun- 
light, and the Nith a pleasant stream. It makes 
a great bend about Dumfries, with Maxwell- 
town across the water, and still 

"Maxwellton's braes are bonny 
Where early fa's the dew." 

Farther a-field there lies Sweetheart Abbey, 
built by the Lady Devorgilla, widow of John 
Balliol, and founder of Balliol at Oxford; one 
of the most beautiful ruins not only in Scot- 
land but in the Kingdom. Caerlaverock castle, 
the Ellangowan of "Gruy Mannering," stands 
on the Solway, which still, like love, ebbs and 
flows. Ecclef echan lies east. ' ' 0, wat ye wha 's 
in yon toun," Burns sang from here, but later 
it was made a place of pilgrimage, with its im- 
mortal dust come back from London for Scot- 
tish rest. 



334 The SpeU of Scotland 

And in St. Michael's Burns was laid to rest 
in 1796, and twenty years later was placed in 
this mausoleum in the corner of the church- 
yard. A sumptuous monument for so simple a 
man. 

"He came when poets had forgot 
How rich and strange the human lot; 
How warm the tints of Life; how hot 

Are Love and Hate; 
And what makes Truth divine, and what 
Makes Manhood great. 

"A dreamer of the common dreams, 
A fisher in familiar streams, 
He chased the transitory gleams 

That all pursue; 
But on his lips the eternal themes 

Again were new." 

The road leads southward, the Via Dolorosa 
Mary took after Langside, the Via Victoriosa 
which Prince Charles took — 

. "Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a', 
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a', 
We'll up and gie them a blaw, a blaw, 
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'. 
Oh, it's ower the Border awa', awa', 
It's ower the Border awa', awa', 
We'll on an' we'll march tae CarUsle Ha' 
Wi' its yetts and castles an' a', an' a'. 
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'." 



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335 



336 Bibliography 



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INDEX 



Abbottsford, 38-47 
Aberdeen, 202, 227, 206-212 
Aeneag Sylvius, 8 
Agricola, 8, 237 
Alexander III, 6, 63, 64, 158- 

159, 173, 210 
Alloway Kirk, 327 
Anne of Brittany, 21 
Ardchonnel, 258 
Ard, Loch, 291 
Ardnamurchan, 266 
Arthur's Seat, 48, 143, 146 
Augustus, Fort, 246 
Awe, Loch, 258-262 
Ayala, Dom Pedro de, 124 



B 



Badenoch, Wolf of, 193, 197, 

224 
Balmoral Castle, 205 
Bannockburn, 21, 27, 164, 232, 

300, 301-303 
Banquo, 132, 176 
Bass, the, 156-157 
Beaton, Cardinal, 164-166 
Bemersyde, 27, 49 
Berwick, 12-17, 24, 57 
Birnam, 192 
Blairgowrie, 198 



Bonar, Horatio, 59 

Border, the, 12, 16, 21, 29, 

60,64 
Borlund, Dr., 79 
Borthwick, 25, 131, 196 
Boswell, James, 155, 167, 234, 

274 
Bothwell Castle, 131, 316 
Bothwell, Jamea, 15, 64, 65, 

66, 67, 114, 146, 196 
Braehead, 154 
Braemar, 196 
Brandir, Pass of, 259-260 
Brantome, Sieur de, 128 
Brown, Dr. John, 79, 151 
Bruce, the, 14, 28, 36, 88, 

97, 132, 164, 177, 178, 

255, 285, 320, 332 
Buccleuch, Duke of, 37, 68 
Buchan, Lords of, 51 
Buchanan, George, 66, 93, 307 
Burns, Robert, 20, 45, 61, 

145, 320-334 
(quoted), 20, 304, 325, 326, 

327, 331 
Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 

205, 209 



c 

Calton Hill, 84, 98, 143-148 
Cambuskenneth, abbey, 309 
battle, 300 



339 



340 



Index 



Canongate, 100, 101-110, 115, 

120, 125 
Carberry, 25, 131 
Carlyle, Thomas, 10, 78, 150, 

163 
Carnegie, Andrew, 178, 237 
Carterhaugh, 72 
Catrail, 40 

Cawdor Castle, 226-227 
Charles I, 25, 45, 88, 89, 112, 

168 
Charles II, 21, 25, 96, 111, 113, 

132, 189, 215 
Charles, Prince, 25, 45, 58, 61, 
68, 71, 88, 114, 115, 133, 
204-205, 227, 230, 233, 
234, 244, 247, 248, 334 
Chastelard, 158 
Chaucer, 8, 126 
Cheviots, lo, 40, 47, 49 
Cistercians, 36 
Claverhouse (Bonnie Dundee), 

45, 94, 142, 194-195 
Clephane, Elizabeth, 27 
Closes, the, 103 
Col, 267 

Coldstream, 19, 20, 21 
Coleridge, 287 
Columba, Saint, 34, 192, 208, 

269, 271-275 
Corriemulzie, 203 
Cowgate, the, 95 
Craigenputtock, 332 
Cromwell, 88, 89, 90, 91, 97, 

102, 214, 230 
Cruachan, Ben, 259, 260, 261 
Culdee, 36, 51, 213 
CuUoden, 205, 231-234, 237 
Cuthbert, Saint, 7, 35 



D 

Dalkeith, 25, 125 

Danes, 12 

Darien scheme, 318 

Darnick, 48 

Darnley, 26, 67, 92, 114, 115, 

130, 131, 160, 196, 306 
David I, 24, 35, 51, 55, 63, 70, 

109-110, 176 
Deans, Jeanie, 10 
Dee, 203, 204 
Disraeli, 10 

Donaldson Hospital, 135 
Douglass, Gavin, 118-122, 193 

Lord James, 28, 76 
Douglasses, the, 16, 29, 76, 

88, 91, 305 
Doune, 310 
Drummelzier, 29 
Drummond, William, 8 
Dryburgh, 39, 47-52 
Dumbarton Castle, 90, 299 
Dumfries, 321, 330, 332-334 
Dunbar, Bob, champion curler, 

180 
WilUam, 120-123, 126 
Dunblane, 309 
Dunfermline, 36, 55, 141, 159, 

173-179 
Dunnolly Castle, 255 
Dunnottar Castle, 212-219, 221 
Dunsinane, 192 
Dunstaffnage Castle, 189, 255- 

257 

E 

Edinburgh, 14, 24, 82-148 



Index 



341 



Edward I, 18, 19, 36, 87, 89 


Gordon, Lady Jane, 123 


Edward VII, 89, 111,312 


Grassmarket, 93, 94, 125 


Eildon hills, 30, 33, 40, 


49, 57 


Great Glen, 234, 236, 242-250 


Elgin, 34, 224 




Greyfriars, 95-96 


Elizabeth, 13, 16, 129 






Elliott, Jean (quoted). 


23 




Ettrick, 47, 105 




H 
Hadrian, 11 


F 




Halidon HiU, 16 

Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 258 


Fair Maid, 188 




Henley (quoted), 134, 171 


Falkirk, 133, 300, 301 




Henry VIII, 14, 36, 57 


Fergusson, Robert, 106 




Hermitage Castle, 15, 65, 66, 


Fife, 14, 149-170 




127 


Findon, 212 




Hogg, James, 9, 75, 105 


Fleming, Marjorie, 150-155, 


Holyrood Palace, 14, 54, 85, 


160-162 




111-133, 146 


Flodden, 17, 21, 22, 23, 


27, 71, 


Howell, James, 9, 314 


117, 126 




Hume, 84, 145, 223 


Ford Castle, 18, 19, 22 




HuntKe Bank, 42, 43 


Forres, 224 




Huntly, 127, 220, 229, 310 


Fotheringay, 6, 16, 67, 


183 




Fox, George, 8 






Froissart, 8 




I 

Innishail, 260 


G 




Inveraragaig, 244 
Inversnaid, 285 


Galashiels, 41, 71 




Inverugie Castle, 221, 223 


Gala Water, 41 




lona, 34, 35, 36, 70, 264-276 


George IV, 144 




Irving, Edward, 78, 150 


George V, 104, 311 




Washington, 30 


Gladstone, 79, 319 






Glamia Castle, 194 






Glasgow, 83, 227 




J 


Glencoe, 262-264 






Glenshee, 198, 199 




Jamea I, 113, 156-157, 188, 


Golf, 167-170 




189-190 



342 



Index 



James II, 25, 56, 113, 304 
James III, 25, 45, 57, 113, 142 
James IV, 19, 21, 22, 25, 73, 

87, 97, 113, 115-126, 129, 

305 
James V, 25, 73, 96, 97, 109, 

113, 184, 281, 305 
James VI, 6, 13, 25, 36, 92, 

132, 167, 190, 283, 306, 

307, 310 
James II of England, VII of 

Scotland, 91, 113, 137, 168 
James the Chevalier, 6, 57, 113, 

201, 212, 223 
Jedburgh, 15, 60-68 
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 9, 102, 

138-139, 156, 164, 167, 

212, 234, 274, 281 
Jonson, Ben, 8 



K 

Katrine, Lake, 287-290, 298 
Keats (quoted), 105, 328 
Kelso, 34, 66-60 
Ker of Fernihurst, 68 
Kerrera, 257 
Kilchurn Castle, 258 
KiUiecrankie, Pass of, 194-196 
Kilmarnock, 321, 329-330 
King Arthur, 85, 168 
Kinghorn, 158, 173 
Kirkcaldy, 150, 151, 159 

General, 88 
Kirk o' Field, 15, 130-131 
Kirkwall, 238 



Knox, John, 14, 107, 150, 164, 
166, 184, 185-187, 190, 
207, 307 



"Lady of the Lake," 278-280 
Lamb, Charles, 150 
Lands, 100, 106, 125, 136, 168 
Lang, Andrew, 31, 71 
(quoted), 31, 162 
Lauder, Harry, 180, 181, 282 
Lavery, John, 317 
Lawnmarket, 100 
Le Croc, 16 

Leith, 14, 116, 128, 155 
Lethington, Mr., Secretary, 67 
Lincoln, Abraham, 145 
Lindisfarne, 7, 35 
Lindsay, Sir David, 122 
Linlithgow Palace, 184-185 
Loch Leven, 45, 67, 106, 131 
Lockhart (quoted), 46 
Lomond, Ben, 285 
Lomond, Loch, 281, 282-287 



M 

Macbeth, 132, 192, 216, 220, 

226, 227, 229, 230 
MacDonald, Flora, 45, 230, 

233 
MacDui, Ben, 202 
Magdalene, Queen, 113, 156 



Index 



343 



Maid of Norway, 7, 210 

Malcolm Canmore, 87, 90, 173, 
177, 179, 200, 220, 229 

Margaret of Denmark, 184, 
210, 238 
Saint, 35, 87, 90, 141, 158, 

172, 174-177 
Tudor, 124-126, 175, 184 

Maries, the Four, 127, 128, 293 

Marischal, Earl, 207, 208, 217, 
220-223 

Marmion, 17, 21, 22, 23, 157 

Mary, Queen of Scots, 13, 15, 
16, 17, 25, 36, 45, 57, 61, 
64, 66, 67, 68, 86, 88, 90, 
91, 92, 93, 94, 102, 105, 
106, 114, 115, 126-131, 
146, 147, 158, 160, 181- 
187, 190, 196, 230, 240, 
292-293, 305, 306, 308, 
316, 334 

Masson, Rosaline (quoted), 132 

McLeodofDare,270 

Meg Merrilies, 62 

Melrose, 5, 25, 48, 63, 113, 177, 
227 

Mendelssohn, 112, 268 

Menteith, Lake, 292 

Merlin, 29 

Moffat, 70 

Monk, General, 20 

Mons Meg, 90-91, 97, 117 

Montrose, Marquis of, 20, 28, 
45, 71, 73, 106-108, 214, 
248-249 
(quoted), 108 

Moray House, 102, 106 

MoreviUe, Hugh de, 51 

Mull, 257, 264, 266, 268, 270 



N 

Nairn, 225 
Napoleon, 44, 45, 46 
Nelson, Lord, 145 
Netherbow Port, 100 
Nevis, Ben, 202, 243, 249-251 
Nor ham Castle, 17, 18 
North, Christopher, 77, 245 

Inch, Perth, 180 
Noyes, Alfred (quoted), 98 



O 

Oban, 235, 252-258 
Ossian, 258 



Park, Mungo, 71, 74 
Pennells, the, 61, 274, 281, 282 
Percy's Reliques, 42, 58, 69 
Perth, 187-192, 227 
Peterhead, 6, 221-223 
PhiKpshaugh, 28, 71, 73 
Prestonpans, 25 
Pulpit HiU, Oban, 257 



Queensberry House, 102 
Queensferry, 172, 174 

R 

Raeburn, 136, 137 
Ravelston, 154-155 



344 



Index 



Regalia, 96-97, 214-216 




Severus, Emperor, 8 




Richard II, 36, 88, 112 




Shakespeare (quoted), 192, 225, 


Rizzio, 130, 131, 190, 306 




226, 230, 268 




Rob Roy, 45, 285, 288, 318 




Sheriffmuir (battle), 300, 


302 


Roman, 11, 40, 48, 51, 158 




Skerryvore, 268 




Roscoff, 68 




Skye, 268 




Rosebery, Lord, 172 




Smailholm, 50 




Rosetti (quoted), 189 




Smith, Adam, 150 




Roxburgh, 54-55 




Smollett, Tobias, 282, 332 




Ruskin, 44, 191 




Spynie Castle, 224 
Staffa, 267-268 








Stevenson, 10, 79, 82, 95, 


142, 






145, 147, 152, 172, 


200, 


S 




267, 268, 275, 314 








(quoted), 95, 104, 143, 


145, 


St. Andrews, 14, 162-170 




275 




St. Cuthbert's Church, 95 


136 


Stewart, Margaret, 15 




St. Giles Church, 67, 85, 


93, 


the, 87, 108-109, 112, 


115, 


104, 118, 136, 146 




130, 194, 253, 305 




St. John's Church, 136 




Stirling (battle), 300, 227 




St. Mary's Loch, 70 




Stonehaven, 210 




Sandy knowe, 49, 50 




Strathcona, Lord, 263 




Sauchieburn (battle), 300, 


302 


Stronochlachar, 288 




Scone, 189, 227 








Scotch plaids, 137 








Scot, Michael, 29, 30, 34, 


48 






Scott monument, 137, 146 




T 




Scott, Sir Walter, 10, 17, 


38, 






41, 43, 44, 58, 62, 75, 


82, 


Tam O'Shanter Inn, 325 




84, 91, 95, 97, 142, 


144, 


Tantallon Castle, 157 




150, 152, 172, 177, 


242, 


Tay, 188, 191, 198 




255, 260, 281 




Taylor, the water-poet, 8 


,99, 


(quoted), 18, 20, 21, 


22, 


102, 203 




26, 29, 30, 32, 37, 38, 


50, 


Teviot, 54, 56 




56, 74, 80, 118, 191, 


264, 


Thomas of Ercildoun, 42 


43, 


267, 277, 280, 282, 


283, 


229 




289, 291, 294, 295, 


296, 


Thomson, James, 59 




297, 302, 304, 305, 311 


Tibbie Shiel, 70, 77 




Sentimental Tommy, 85, 


169 


Tilt, Glen, 196, 197, 203 





\? 



RD- 95- 



Index 



345 



Tiree, 267 




Wall, the, 10, 11 


Tolbooth, 45, 106 




Warbeck, Perkin, 123 


Tomnahurich, 229 




Watson, William (quoted), 334 


Town Cross, Edinburgh, 125 


Waverleys, the, 45, 144, 148 


Trehinish Isles, 266, 268 




Wesley, John, 9 


Tronkirk, 136 




West Bow, 141 


Turner, 18, 19, 20, 27, 39 




Westminster Abbey, 16 


Twain, Mark, 151 




Whistler, 317 


Tweed, 13, 15, 43, 44, 47, 


54 


William, Fort, 236, 248 
Winter, WiUiam, 10, 160, 228, 
252 


U 




Wishart, George, 164 
Wolfe, General, 288 


Upson, Arthur, 148, 175 




Wordsworth, Dorothy, 34, 39, 


Urquhart, 244 




61, 62, 95, 263, 284, 289, 
294-295 
William, 56, 69, 72, 73, 75, 


V 




225, 287, 331 


Victoria, Queen, 4, 284, 


285, 




310, 312 






w 




Y 


Wallace, William, 74, 178 


214, 


Yarrow, 47, 69, 70-73 


260, 308, 315-319 




Yetholm, 62 



4^ 



% 



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